Mina Kimes and Phil Yu Headline AREAA 2022 National Convention

The Asian Real Estate Association of America will hold its 2022 national convention, AREAA Unplugged, on October 20-22 in San Diego, California at the Manchester Grand Hyatt. AREAA expects more than 1,000 to attend.

The event will be headlined by multiple prominent figures in the real estate industry and AAPI community, featuring 75 speakers who will address such timely topics as modern content creation and marketing, navigating the current marketplace, ways to grow a real estate career, AAPI migration patterns and more. 

The AREAA event will also feature two well-known Korean Americans. Mina Kimes, an award-winning journalist and respected NFL analyst. She has worked for Fortune Small Business Magazine, Bloomberg and now ESPN.  Phil Yu is a Peabody Award-winning writer and speaker who is best known as the creator of Angry Asian Man, one of the most widely read and longest-running independent websites covering Asian American news, culture, and issues. He is also the co-author of New York Times’ best-seller RISE: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now. 

Dermot Buffini, CEO of Buffini & Company, will kick-off AREAA Unplugged’s opening session.   

“AREAA Unplugged gives us the opportunity to speak about the most important issues we face in real estate and in the AAPI community,” said Hope Atuel, CEO of AREAA. “We’re fortunate to have plenty of powerful voices within the communities we serve and we believe that these industry leaders can help our attendees moving forward in their careers. While we have made great strides, the AAPI community still lags behind in our homeownership rates as we face a variety of challenges including housing discrimination, affordability, language barriers and credit concerns. We will address these concerns and also focus on the business development and networking needs of our members as they work to navigate a changing real estate market.”

Atuel pointed out that the most recent U.S. Census report showed that the 61.1% AAPI homeownership rate is far behind the U.S. mark of 65.8% and 74.6% for non-Hispanic Whites.

AREAA Unplugged features a variety of industry leaders including:

• Dionne Cuello, National Diverse Market Segments, Citi
• Mike Dawson, Vice President of Affordable Lending Strategies, Freddie Mac
• M. Ryan Gorman, CEO, Coldwell Banker
• James Huang, President, eXp Commercial
• Lenny McNeill, Executive Vice President, U.S. Bank Home Mortgage
• Charlie Oppler, 2022 Immediate Past President, NAR
• George Ratiu, Manager, Economic Research, Realtor.com
• Neil Ruiz, Associate Director, Race and Ethnicity Research, Pew Research Center
• Mike Reagan, Senior Vice President, RE/MAX
• Vivian Young, Global Head of AAPI Affairs, JPMorgan Chase

ABOUT AREAA

Founded in 2003, the Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) is a national nonprofit trade organization with more than 17,000 members dedicated to improving the lives of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community through homeownership. Visit areaa.org for more information.

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