Her Story
About Deedee
Deedee Martin serves as a commercial brokerage manager at Interest Commercial Advisors in San Antonio, TX. In this role, she oversees a portfolio of buildings and offices for commercial suites and warehouses. With nearly four years of experience in real estate, she transitioned into the field after working as a property manager assistant, inspired by her family's ownership of real estate. She is actively pursuing her real estate license to engage in commercial leasing and plans to follow that with the RPM certification to become a Real Property Administrator. Martin works in a male-prevalent industry and finds motivation in representing women by taking on the financial and risk-related challenges of commercial real estate. Outside of her professional pursuits, she enjoys fishing, hiking, and spending time in nature, and she personally creates and distributes blessing packages to support homeless individuals in her community.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Deedee
01What do you attribute your success to?
I work in an industry that's very male-dominated. A lot of investors all over the country are men. I notice that there's not that many women that are in the industry, in the commercial industry of real estate. I was like, why is that? Why is it that we're not dominating the field? And frankly, I think it's a situation of risk. It's very scary to join the commercial industry. It sounds intimidating because there's a lot of financial and risk and loans involved. So when I started, I was very intimidated, but it becomes like a challenge. I want to be part of the team. Right now in my job it's mostly guys in the company so it feels great to be out there and just represent my gender.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say to really find your momentum and don't wait for the perfect moment to do something. A lot of women for example they don't always apply to a job if they're not 100% qualified and they don't always take risk as much as men might do. So my advice would be to just do it and don't wait for the perfect moment. You're never going to be 100% ready for the challenges but it's always good to start and just learn along the way and take baby steps for big projects.
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