Sue Hawkes
Title: President and CEO, The Collaborative Cos.
Age: 61
Experience: 35 years
Sue Hawkes has spent 35 years in the construction business, marketing every size and type of new development. She sat down with Banker & Tradesman to talk about Boston’s current building boom and the future of the local residential market.
Q: The condo inventory situation in Boston right now is insane. Have you ever seen it like this?
A: Not that I can recall. Certainly, there’s been a knee-jerk reaction to the overbuilding that occurred the last time we had a correction in the marketplace. Obviously the lack of capital available to build, the unsettled economic marketplace – nobody wanted to build condominiums, the last five to seven years. We’ve created a dearth of supply, and now the market’s hungry. The new construction is all over $1,000 a [square] foot, and two years away. It’s really feeding the resale market, because people want to move somewhere, so it’s pushing up their values as well. And as people move into the new product, which is more expensive, it will leave an opportunity for some of what they’re leaving behind to be absorbed at lower prices. So at least you can backfill some of that gap. But it’s going to be really interesting to see what we have in five years here with the combination of rental and for-sale product that’s on the boards. It’s an excessive amount of inventory, but all indications are that it should be able to be absorbed. But the challenge is with the pricing.
Q: Do you feel like we’re redefining the high end, in Boston? You mentioned in a talk the other day, we’ve only sold 120-something units at the very high end, and there’s a lot more coming.
A: One hundred and twenty-five over $2 million, last year [in Boston].
Q: Where will we find the buyers? Will we be airlifting them in from Manhattan?
A: Well, no one has a really clear answer to that question. What we’ve seen in the last couple years, certainly the log-jam of suburban move-down buyers has broken. All the people from the high end suburbs that wanted to move in, they now can sell their homes for a reasonable return. But certainly, $2 million and up – that’s still thin air for greater Boston. We’re not New York; you just can’t even compare the two … you certainly have financial, and medical, and academic, and that’s feeding a certain group. And then you have the international group, and I think that will continue to grow. The United States is still one of the safest places you can put your money … and in Boston, they see the appreciation here, they recognize that it’s a top-three city in terms of investment, and they totally appreciate the academic signature that Boston has. Arguably higher than anywhere else in the world. I just got back from China; we did a fair amount of touring, and I was traveling with people from both New York and London, and as soon as I said Boston, their eyes got big … that’s a big thing to them, in anticipation of their children coming here.
Q: Tell me a little about yourself. What drew you into the industry?
A: I started rather circuitously. My first job out of college, I sold steel. For five years, for Ryerson Steel Co. Here I was, a young co-ed, straight out of school, walking into steel mills and machine shops. The interesting thing is, I would never have projected how much of an impact it would have on my future knowledge base. I was a political science major, in school – [when I took the steel job,] I was thinking of going to law school, and this was just a job. But I became very involved with their fabrication department. And as a result, I had to learn to read blueprints in and out, because I had to do take-offs that they would order the steel from. GE’s turbine division, over in Lynn, was one of my clients. So I learned to think three-dimensionally. I never took a drafting course, it was just something I learned on the job. But in my business now, that’s been something that’s invaluable, because I can look at floorplans and buildings the same way I looked at machinery. So it gave me a tremendous education which helped me to deal with my current industry.
I left that job when I had my son. At first I thought I was looking for something part time, so I thought, well, maybe I’ll go into real estate. Well, that lasted three months before I was bored out of my skull. As it happened, my son’s godfather was [an executive with] Spaulding and Slye, and he knew they were looking for people [at one of their new developments]. So that’s where I started. I was in the trenches, I worked on-site. The whole nine yards.
You know it’s interesting, your path – it’s the bits and pieces that you pick up along the way that become invaluable assets to your livelihood. Clearly that experience of working in the steel industry – I laugh today when I hear women complain about sexual harassment in the workplace.
Q: I can imagine, a steel factory, 30 years ago …
A: 40 years ago, and I was 22!
Q: I don’t think I can imagine, actually.
A: Yeah. Well, it taught me … it was all men that I dealt with, and I was the only female not in an administrative role. And it just taught me how to deal with people, in a lot of ways. To let things roll off of me, and throw it back at them. All the innuendoes and the nuances. It gave me a thick skin, and it taught me how to deal in a man’s world. Even though, in the part of the construction industry I’m in now, I’m not hanging from the rafters everyday with a hard hat on my head. But I have to deal with that end of the business every day. And it gave me a great base … I can kind of play their game. It kind of gave me an edge.
Top 5 Up-and-Coming Neighborhoods To Watch In Boston:
- East Boston: The next frontier. Once the infrastructure improves, it’s the next logical step.
- Mission Hill
- Roxbury
- Everett-Revere: If the casinos come in, both workforce housing and commercial development will follow.
- South Boston will continue to expand further out.
