(Corrects the name to James "Jamie" Dimon instead of James L. "Jamie" Dimon as originally published.)
Across the U.S., millions are agonizing about their inability to buy and sell a home. Most feel powerless, unable to control their financial destinies. They are buffeted by low housing prices, resetting mortgage payments, stagnant salaries, and elusive financing. They are waiting for the market to stabilize, for the economy to rebound, for consumer confidence to revive. But this sort of relief doesn't just happen. It takes time, planning, and lots and lots of money.
It also takes the right people in the right jobs. The real estate industry is vast, interlocking, and disorderly. The men and women whose job it is to make sense of real estate—to regulate it, pump money into it, and perhaps even keep it from blowing up again—are also the ones with the power to fix it. These are the economists and bankers, politicians and developers, portfolio managers and homebuilders who make up the first-ever list of Bloomberg BusinessWeek's 50 Most Powerful People in Real Estate.
Who are these people? The list, shaped in interviews with industry experts, includes head of banks such as JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO James "Jamie" Dimon; investors such as David Neithercut, CEO of Equity Residential (EQR), one of the largest apartment owners in the U.S.; leaders of key lobbying organizations such as Vicki Cox Golder, president of the National Association of Realtors; and economists such as professors Robert Shiller and Karl "Chip" Case, who developed the influential S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. In addition, the heads of landowning organizations were also included, such as Mark Tercek, chief executive of the Nature Conservancy, which controls more than 2.8 million U.S. acres.
Some on our list have more power than others. President Barack Obama is an easy pick, but many are less obvious choices. For example, Edward DeMarco appears because he oversees Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE), the nation's two largest mortgage finance lenders, in his capacity as director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is listed because China holds $895 billion of U.S. debt.
It is important to stress that this roster is not a ranking. There is no accurate yardstick to compare a banker with, say, an academic. To arrive at the list, we assembled a universe of several hundred names, grouped them by sector—economists, government, mortgage lenders, residential brokerages, home builders, and so forth—and then started whittling. We looked at the biggest lenders and homebuilders, the most influential politicians and economists, the largest landholders and REITs.
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