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Sara R.
Evanston, IL

Real Estate Economist

Sara R. Rutledge has a diverse, 25-year background in real estate research and economics and founded her company, SRR Consulting, in 2018. Her rich experience working with data providers, brokerage services, and investment management makes SRR Consulting unique in its capabilities to support a wide variety of real estate decisions. Ms. Rutledge began her real estate career in 1999 with Atlanta-based Jamison Research Inc., learning about the industry directly from market participants. After the firm was acquired by CoStar Group, she moved into research for brokerage services at Delta Associates, then the research affiliate of Transwestern. She jumped at this role for the opportunity to initiate market research coverage of major metros in her native state of Texas. Her success in creating new market coverage for Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston led to the responsibility for additional market coverage in Austin, Phoenix, Los Angeles/Orange County, and Chicago. Ms. Rutledge then joined the research team at Invesco Real Estate in 2005 to apply her strengths in econometric analysis to real estate investment strategy. She developed strategy for direct real estate investment in major Western U.S. metros and the national industrial market as the research member of an interdisciplinary team. For property sector strategy, she developed an econometric model to analyze relative real estate investment performance across markets for each property type. She also developed an econometric model to forecast U.S. real gross domestic product and lead the economic view underpinning the team’s real estate forecasts. During her tenure at Invesco, Ms. Rutledge spent four semesters as an Adjunct Professor of Research Methods at her alma mater, the University of North Texas. The course was taught in her former department, the Institute of Applied Economics, which has since been combined into the Department of Economics. Ms. Rutledge moved into a leadership role in 2013, joining CBRE as their Director of Research and Analysis for Texas. She led research functions and staff for Texas and Oklahoma, ensuring accuracy and comprehensiveness of reporting on their proprietary data, preparing white papers, delivering presentations, and engaging with the media. She integrated research activities in energy-driven markets into CBRE’s global Energy Industry Vertical and prepared an Americas-level report on real estate opportunities in these areas. Her expertise in working with real estate data and managing research processes opened a new opportunity to join the private equity real estate investment industry association. Ms. Rutledge left Texas for Chicago to serve as the Director of Research for the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF), managing all research activities for the association. She provided outreach and education for NCREIF data product releases via a live webinar presentation, in-house Performance Report, and ad-hoc member and media inquiries. Ms. Rutledge also worked with an early-stage data science start-up serving the real estate industry. As Managing Director of Real Estate Products at StratoDem Analytics (acquired by Altus in 2021), she ensured existing and new products within their research platform met the research needs of the real estate industry. She was responsible for product development, content creation, and UI/UX design and worked with prospects and clients to incorporate the SAAS platform into existing research processes. In 2022, Ms. Rutledge took a hiatus from SRR Consulting to join StepStone Real Estate as Managing Director and Head of Global Market Research to build-out their team-wide House Views process. The resulting biannual report and webinar informed clients about the global macroeconomic view, real estate performance projections, and country/property type portfolio positioning. She also worked with parent company (StepStone Group) leadership and risk management to define firm-wide macroeconomic views underlying private equity investment strategies across asset classes. After developing and running these projects for two years, Ms. Rutledge relaunched her business in 2024 with new subscription options added to her bespoke research services. She has co-authored two academic papers on real estate performance topics. The Real Estate Research Institute-funded “No Encore for Non-core? Property-level returns in the private real estate market” added a property-level analysis to existing research on the benefits, or lack thereof, of including non-core real estate in core portfolios. In “The Impact of Hurricanes on the Value and Returns for Commercial Real Estate”, published in Business Economics, she explored the duration and impact of the most damaging hurricanes on real estate values with her NCREIF colleague, Dr. Fisher.
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Skills

  • Real Estate
  • Investment Strategy
  • Market Analysis
  • Research Methods
  • Real Estate Investment Assistance
  • Research & Strategy
  • Investment Portfolio Review
  • Research Summary

Get started working with Sara quickly with these predefined projects.

Get started working with Sara quickly with these predefined projects.

You will get economic and real estate insights tailored to your business.

From $750
3 days delivery

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