International Women’s Day Spotlight: Kate Arthur

Meet Kate Arthur, a professional who has 17 years of experience in the Real Estate industry.

Currently Kate works with Franklin Shanks, having recently made a move from residential to commercial real estate. “After completely burning out in residential real-estate I changed industries returning to my hospitality roots, that role came to a screeching halt due to Covid,  I was thrust back into residential real-estate for a year. The opportunity to work with Franklin Shanks came out of nowhere. Commercial real-estate has always been of interest and the opportunity to learn from the inside and represent the occupier was too hard to resist. The change has been refreshing and enjoyable” says Kate. 

As an excellent communicator, negotiator, and problem solver, she finds solutions to problems that energize her. She always acts with integrity and professionalism, but also strikes the perfect balance between hard work and fun. Highly respected in the local community and industry, she has a reputation for being dedicated, hard-working, intelligent, passionate, with a deep understanding of customer service and customer experience, providing friendly and professional service at all times.

Despite her 17-year experience – which included coaching principals and employee teams for over 118 real estate offices and presenting to 70+ agents at a time – Kate has faced many challenges as a woman in the field. She is often treated like it is her first role. “No voice given in boardrooms and when opinions are voiced then you are targeted as being difficult. If you ask too many questions you are a troublemaker, if you out sell a colleague of the opposite sex, he will try to claim the deal as his own and more often than not end up with your commission. Women are pushed out of roles for over performing and outshining the alpha male in the room.” explains Kate. All these challenges she has taken as learning experiences, which allowed her to be stronger and more confident in her abilities. 

Kate believes that essential qualities for success in commercial real estate are empathy, strong listening skills, and communication. Knowing when to talk and when to listen is critical. Her advice for women interested in entering the commercial real estate industry is to do it! “Despite the challenges, it is incredibly rewarding. Every deal is different, which opens opportunities to apply skills and learn something new every day. It also offers insights into different industries that one would not normally be exposed to”, says Kate. 

She has worked on several exciting projects in her career, including being the only team member to sign four franchise agreements in a six-month period for a new Real Estate Brand. She also found eight locations in a very short period for a start-up online food delivery company, which she found to be a lot of fun. Inspections and negotiations for this project were spread across Sydney, which opened the opportunity to quickly understand the relevant markets.

Regarding the future of commercial real estate, she believes that the sector will see significant investment with the current focus of businesses to entice workers back into the office, a focus on improving end-of-trip facilities and creating a better working environment. “Retail vacancy rates and rents will stabilize in the next 18 months as major shopping centers incentivize companies to stay. Redevelopment of tired shopping malls and centers will also be a focus to entice customer-facing shopping. With two years of lockdowns driving the movement of companies to larger spaces to accommodate reconfigurations for customer spacing and allowance in offices for zoom meeting rooms, she sees her role in driving the market for the next 12 months at least. There is also a focus on the redevelopment of unused dilapidated buildings for retail and residency that will drive the new build market and rezoning of land parcels, creating more space for warehousing to meet the demand for businesses that expanded their online purchasing.”