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Denisha McDonald
President, Thumbprint Realty
Age: 38
Industry experience: 8 years
Denisha McDonald has made it her mission to help residents of Boston’s underserved neighborhoods build wealth through homeownership. Now McDonald is partnering with a major developer on a proposal that includes 466 housing units including 40 market-rate condominiums at the city-owned parcel P3 in Roxbury. Boston-based HYM Investment Group and anti-violence community group My City at Peace are seeking designation from the Boston Planning and Development Agency to revitalize the long-vacant parcel with the housing component and over 600,000 square feet of office-lab space. A native of Trinidad, McDonald graduated from Boston University and worked in sports medicine before going into real estate brokerage.
Q: What’s the background on how you and the HYM team got together on the parcel P3 proposal?
A: I met Rev. [Jeffrey] Brown and [co-founder] Thomas Sullivan from My City at Peace four years ago now. I host the Build Black Wealth seminar at Roxbury Community College and have done that since 2015. They came to one of the sessions and we met for coffee afterward and said, “This is great synergy.” They know my vision and platform, and they told me what they were thinking about for parcel P3, and we partnered on this journey. I’m passionate about affordable housing, and on the brokerage side we’ll be representing the market-rate units.
Q: What was your entry into the world of real estate?
A: My background originally was in sports medicine. My dad is a general contractor, so I’ve always been involved in real estate, but I’ve transitioned into it as a full-time career for almost 10 years as a real estate agent. I transitioned out of working with clients directly in sales and now do more of the counseling and homebuyer education, helping people understand the process and how to maneuver situations and make it work for them.
My consulting firm, Our Village Initiative, is where I consult with developers in trying to be conscious of making sure we have community benefits that really benefit the community, not just plants and flowers everywhere. We partner with developers on homeownership and connect with them to create scholarship funds at a local high school, or build a community path. I worked with Oxbow Urban LLC on a project in Roxbury that is 40 units of affordable homeownership, which are under construction right now, at 25 Fountain St. We get homebuyers interested in the project and make sure the community knows about it.
I consult with developers in trying to be conscious of making sure we have community benefits that really benefit the community, not just plants and flowers everywhere.
What we found over the years is people in these communities care about it and want to buy it when it’s complete: when the siding is up, they want to buy. But if you have problems on your buyer profile, it’s too late. We want to give them the support so they can apply for these mortgages. That’s what we’re going to do at parcel P3: we would start that pretty much from day one. It does take a while. But we have six years to plan.
Q: How does the outreach campaign work?
A: It’s attending a lot of community meetings. From the Fountain Street project, we heard from the neighbors and tried to address all the issues. We’re going through some of the same things with P3, helping people understand what it means to be a homeowner and starting to have a little conversation about those finances. Those happen better in intimate settings than in large groups. We get people into one-on-ones and start creating a plan for them.
Q: The redevelopment momentum of city-owned parcels in Nubian Square seems to be creating more market-rate residential development in the neighborhood. How can the city and developers balance that increase in private investment with the risk of gentrification and displacement?
A: Nubian Square has become highly desirable and a lot of professionals have fallen in love with it. Investors are also coming in aggressively and the prices are being driven up beyond what many people can afford. Roxbury is up and coming – it’s the hot neighborhood. We call it the heart of the city, and it really is in the middle. We all know it’s increasing the rate of displacement.
For parcel P3, we made it such a huge point to create as many homeownership units as possible. About 80 percent of our homeownership units are affordable. That’s our commitment to hedge against displacement, and as part of that, we are working with the city and state officials to see what can be done to modify the current deed restrictions [on affordability]. It’s 30 years and then the city has the option to extend it for an additional 20 years. We also are cross-subsidizing the project [through the life science component].
Steve Adams
Q: What is Thumbprint Realty’s history and market niche?
A: It was founded in 2015 by Alex E. Edwards, the broker-owner, and I was elected president last year. The goal is we stand by our motto of creating the most trusted real estate firm. We are also big on giving back to the community and making sure everything we do has a positive impact on the neighborhoods we serve. Primarily we’ve been focused in Boston, but now some of our clients are in the South Shore because of the prices: Taunton, Brockton. It’s crazy. Brockton was not the most desirable city in years prior, and now those prices have come up to where they’re matching Boston. Taunton, Attleboro, Fall River: they are going out there.
McDonald’s Top Five Ways To Support MBE:
- Read “The Color Of Law” by Richard Rothstein to understand the history of segregation from a housing perspective – opportunity stems from ownership.
- Conduct business with local Minority and Women Lead Businesses .
- Leverage your status or your network to help someone who does not look like you or come from the same community as you.
- Always think, “If this were me, how would I like to be treated?” Empathy comes from literally putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.
- Validate our experiences. They may not be yours, but they are real.
