Tawan Davis knows his way around real estate. And that’s no small feat.

According to The New York Times, only about 6 percent of real estate agents and brokers in the U.S. are Black. Their white peers make almost three times as much, according to data and surveys.

So for Davis to reach the pinnacle he is at meant overcoming challenges. Today, Davis is the founder and CEO of Philadelphia- and New York-based Steinbridge Group. His real estate and assets company recently partnered with PNC Bank and Fierce Realty Corp to acquire and renovate homes for working families to lease throughout the U.S.

it was recently announced that Steinbridge Group is pledging $100 million to tackle historic funding disparities at the Historically Black Colleges and Univesities. The initiative will provide affordable housing solutions for HBCUs.

“The company’s goal is to demonstrate that private capital can be used to do tremendous good and still make a good return. While the model opens the door for Steinbridge to partner alongside an array of local groups like community hospitals, churches, or local nonprofits, HBCUs stood out as clear investment pursuits,” Tawan Davis, Steinbridge’s founder and CEO, told Forbes.

Real estate runs in the Davis’ family, and one of his goals is to increase homeownership for working-class families. His real estate and asset management company strives to acquire renovations that will be made available for working families to lease across the country, AfroTech reported.

Davis’ great-grandmother and her two sisters were sharecroppers. Following the 1948 Vanport Flood, they went on to purchase several houses in northeast Portland. When family and friends came to visit the area, they stayed in the houses while they worked to accumulate their own wealth. 

Now, Davis wants to pass on this generational wealth-building through real estate onto others.

This is what he has done by encouraging real estate investing in Philadelphia, where Davis, who holds an MBA from Harvard, has made a long-term commitment to less-affluent renters in the city’s gentrifying neighborhoods.

In these communities, Steinbridge is buying and renovating single-family homes that will rent for $900 to $1,400 a month. The goal is to ultimately manage 500 properties in Philadelphia, Davis told Harvard Business School.

“You want to see positive economic changes in a community, but you don’t want people who have been committed to and living in the community for generations to be displaced,” Davis told Harvard Business School. “We can prevent that by creating rental opportunities for people who want to stay in their community.”

Steinbridge plans to invest $425 million in the acquisition and renovation of single-family rental properties in East Coast cities. “We believe this is an expandable, repeatable model,” Davis says.

Tawan Davis, Photo: Steinbridge Group, https://www.steinbridge.com/about/