Bianca D'Alessio
Bianca Lifestyle-10.jpg
“Find someone who inspires you and learn everything you can from them.”
#WomenWhoBuild meet Bianca D'Alessio,
Bianca is the Director of New Development for Nest Seekers, where she manages new development agents, marketing specialists, and an operations team. In her role, Bianca advises on over $1B in active new development sales and more than $3B in new development inventory currently in the pipeline. Since she joined Nest Seekers, Bianca has handled the sellouts for 868 Lorimer on the Park, 145 Carroll Gardens, 505 Clinton Avenue, and HERO in Long Island City and is currently managing the pre-development for 120 Java, 66 Steuben, and 1484 Dekalb. Prior to starting her career in real estate, Bianca worked for a non-profit organization which focused on leadership development for young women.
ArchNative sat down with Bianca (virtually of course) to discuss her transition from a career in a non-profit organization to one in real estate, what her day to day looks like in her current role, and her advice for women who are looking to enter the real estate field.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey in real estate?
I have been surrounded by real estate my entire life. I grew up in a family of developers and for as long as I can remember, my dining room table had blueprints spread across it as if they were a permanent fixture in my house. From when I was a child, I used to love going over plans, studying layouts and spent hours discussing how the smallest changes could impact the entire flow of the house. When I first started my career in Real Estate sales, I just wanted to learn as much as I possibly could. Development was my passion but I initially focused on coop and condo resales to get experience in different neighborhoods, buildings and with varying client personalities. Working with individual buyers and sellers across all of NYC allowed me to study the market at a very intimate level – what motivates people, how to best negotiate, how to properly communicate and how to organize myself and my time to be strategic, calculated and intentional with every decision I made. Now, as the Director of New Development for Nest Seekers Development Marketing, I oversee and manage a portfolio of $1B in active and $3B in pipeline New Development condominium inventory for the company. I have the privilege of working with some of the most incredible developers, architects, and designers in the industry to create buildings that will redefine the NYC skyline.
What was your transition like from a career in a not-for-profit organization to a career in real estate?
I loved my time working in the not-for-profit world. I had the opportunity to travel across the country and meet some truly inspiring women. While I was doing this, I realized that derive my motivation from working around captivating people and love building teams. I quickly realized I wanted to work for myself and have ownership over my success and my career and Real Estate felt like the natural next step. Within days of returning back to NYC, I had my real estate license in hand and was already hitting the streets, attending Open Houses, networking and trying to meet as many people as possible. Being “busy” in the beginning was easy, but making deals happen was not. It definitely took longer than I anticipated to build my rolodex and for it to just “click.” I worked as hard as I could to get as much experience as possible; I worked seven days a week and for very low splits so everyone would want to work with me and it allowed me to learn an incredible amount from a lot of different people.
What type of responsibilities do you deal with in your current role?
As the Director of New Development, I work hand in hand with real estate developers, architects, engineers, designers, and industry leaders to offer pre-construction advisement and a full suite of sales and marketing services. From site acquisition through sell out, my team handles unit mix/site planning, layout design and finish package advisory, strategic amenity implementation and manages on-site sales and leasing. We use data science, analytics, and strategic planning and positioning to inform every decision we make. We help developers understand the logic behind our strategy and we are constantly projecting and analyzing market trends to ensure our projects are well-positioned and differentiated in the market.
What does your day to day look like?
One of the things that excites me most about my job is that there is never a “typical day.” I like to start my day in our corporate office at 505 Park and from there I jump all over the place. At 9am every day, our team has a daily round up – we jump on a 10 minute call each morning to all share our objectives and goals for the day. We download with each other what is happening on every single project we are working on so we are all in the know. This helps motivate and focus the team on the important tasks for the day; it keeps us accountable to one another and to the team. I like to always be in the office in the morning so my team can see me because I usually spend the rest of the day bouncing between appointments across the city. A lot of my day is spent on the phone with our developers, managing our projects, working with our marketing team to continue to put together creative and innovative content, and managing our onsite sales teams to ensure we are working strategically and making adjustments when needed. I regularly bounce between our development sites and our active projects and the bulk of the day is spent in meetings and on the phone. When I get home, my nights are spent in spreadsheets analyzing numbers, pricing, comparables and building reports for our team and clients.
How do you approach each project that you are working on?
I have a lot of to-do lists. Communication and organization are key. Beyond that, the most important is understanding niche markets and creating a brand for every building to target the right buyers. Strategy and positioning inform every decision I make. What is the goal, what is the strategy to achieve that goal, and how do we best position ourselves to ensure we are successful.
What has been your biggest challenge in your career?
A recent challenge for me is hiring the people and talent that fit in with the culture of our existing team. I am so hungry to expand and grow and give newer agents opportunities to learn and build their business but I also set the bar very high. I want to make sure that everyone we bring on fully understands the teams values, work ethic and goals.
What is one piece of advice you have for women entering the field?
Find someone who inspires you and learn everything you can from them. Find a mentor, surround yourself with like-minded people and work as harder than everyone else. First one in, last one out still applies in this industry. Ask questions and put yourself out there. There is a ton of rejection in this business, some days are incredible and other are horrible. It is a roller-coaster of emotions, but persistence, confidence, practice and hard work pays off. You will not make it overnight in the industry, but I promise once it starts to happen – it is the greatest feeling in the world.