Janae Hilliard

My journey into real estate was anything but traditional. I came from a blue-collar family with no exposure to this business, and I got my degree in sociology thinking I would do social work. When I moved to LA, I was just looking for job opportunities and didn't have a huge network, so I landed with a temp agency who placed me with CBRE in an administrative role. I started in brokerage and was there for about six and a half years, getting promoted a handful of times and eventually moving to the transactional side. But I realized brokerage wasn't the path for me, so I moved to the principal ownership side because I really wanted to understand how the business operated from a cash flow perspective and managing that. While at Brookfield Properties, I took the USC Ross program to learn how to underwrite deals and understand the financials better. That's when I decided to pivot into asset management, working primarily on Class A high-rise office. Then COVID hit and I pivoted to multifamily asset management. I moved to Chapelle Properties, a family-owned office, where I spent about two and a half years really building out the infrastructure and processes of their asset management platform. I created and developed their budgeting process from soup to nuts, adopted a new technology platform and was on the forefront of integrating that into the company, providing training materials and serving as the single source of contact. I also restructured their GL accounts and implemented processes around max legal rent. It was a lot of implementation and project management because they didn't historically have an asset management department. I also finished my UCLA certification in real estate investment and finance while at Chapelle to further enhance my skills. Now I'm at April Housing, a Blackstone portfolio company, focusing on LIHTC affordable housing deals. I'm the overlay to property management, ensuring our properties are cash flowing, maintaining our values, and implementing strategic initiatives where there are inefficiencies at the property level. I'm hyper-focused on the property financials and integrating solutions and strategic decision-making where needed.