12/05/2025
I am honored to be installed as the 2026 President of Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors (GCAAR). As the President I will get to help lead this organization, and guide us in our legislative efforts to provide better housing policy in Washington, DC and Montgomery County MD. Housing policy is not something I am merely interested in because of my profession, but rather I sought out this profession because of my passion for housing policy and a belief that home ownership changes lives. We face a housing crisis in Maryland, DC, and nationally. The median age of a first time home buyer has risen from 28 years old in 1990 to 40 years old today. An affordability crisis has made it so much harder for people to achieve the American dream of home ownership.
Housing policy affects every one of us, from the day we are born til the day that we die. Home ownership provides the key to so many of the ills of our society, and is something deeply personal to me. I grew up in Chelsea, MA. To my friends in the DC area, this really means nothing. But to my family and friends in Boston, that means something very specific. Chelsea, at just 2 square miles was one of the poorest cities in America with some of the highest concentrations of poverty in this country. In the 70s through 90s it was also one of the most dangerous cities in America peaking at the 9th most dangerous city in the FBI’s annual top 100 list when I was in high school. Poverty, violent crime, drugs, environmental disaster as lead paint would rain down on the city from the Tobin Bridge, and as dangerous chemicals were thrown into Chelsea Creek by chemical and oil companies. It was a bad place. Being born and raised there stacked the deck against me early on.
I started in my earliest years growing up in poverty in the failed experiments of the Federal Governments Housing Projects. My father was a violent drug addict and criminal…..til he thankfully one day got sober. (I have entirely other rants on how drug addiction should be treated as a healthcare problem instead of a criminal justice problem, but Ill save that for another time). After he got sober, he got a job, turned his life around….he scraped and saved every penny so he could buy a house. And he was only able to do so because multifamily zoning existed in the Boston area. So I was granted the opportunity to, at a very important juncture to live in a home my parents owned. This would be transformational, and allow me the opportunities so many of my friends, and family, and even my brother Christopher never experience. Housing stability would allow me to do better in school, and go onto a good high school, college, and open so many doors for me for decades to come. My family was able to lift themselves out of poverty through home ownership. Home ownership changed my families lives, and I see it change the lives of so many others.
Ive seen what failed housing policy can do to communities. Ive seen how homeownership can transform lives and our communities. Im honored to have this position…but what I do with this position is so vital. Advocating for our 13,000 members, advocating for raising the homeownership rate, particularly within disadvantaged communities, advocating for a more equitable housing market, doing our part to tear down systematically racists housing policies….all of these things I am passionate about, and will work hard to accomplish in this role, and the other leadership roles I have in this industry.
