Broker Spotlight: Maureen Anter-Ressler

For Maureen Anter-Ressler, past business experience and an entrepreneurial family history are the perfect combination for success in the real estate industry. 

Since joining Cushman & Wakefield | CRESCO as Senior Associate in January 2022, Maureen has focused on industrial real estate, representing buyers, tenants, owners and landlords. She also is involved with the owner-occupied side of property acquisition.

“CRESCO is an industrial giant and it’s nice to join them,” Maureen said. “Their market knowledge is on point and they’ve assembled a fantastic team of players that work well together. These are some of the best agents in Cleveland, so I’m excited to be able to learn from them and grow.”

She also sees the value in the company’s national platform, which offers the ability to pull resources from other cities and collaborate in other markets. 

“They’ve kept the same core beliefs of what the original partners had put together, which is really unique,” Maureen said. “The fact that they’ve been able to walk that fine line and keep that feel of what they originally started is something I’m glad to be a part of.”

Prior to joining CRESCO, she and a partner formed a union construction company based in Cleveland. While the company saw success and worked on some high-profile projects, the pair had purchased some commercial real estate and made some mistakes. This led Maureen to select real estate as her “second act” when she was bought out of the construction company. 

“I had this long history in construction, but I did not want to stay in that,” she said. “I really liked real estate, so I got my license in 2016 and went right into commercial real estate for a retail firm. Cleveland being a smaller market, we were doing some industrial and some office, not just retail.” 

With her background in construction, Maureen realized she wanted to focus solely on industrial real estate, something the retail firm was not equipped to handle. 

“CRESCO is a market leader in that specific industry,” she said. “So when the opportunity came up, I definitely seized it.”

Overcoming Obstacles

Both construction and commercial real estate are male-dominated industries, something Maureen hopes will change in the future. 

While she’s had her share of uncomfortable moments throughout her career — men assuming she started in residential real estate or wanting to avoid financial discussions due to the fact that she is a woman — Maureen has not been deterred.

“You have to have thick skin,” she said. “I like being one of the very few females in this industry, and I think my female counterparts are just fantastic. It’s difficult, but they make it look easy. I’d love to see more females get into these non-traditional roles.”

Maureen not only embodies this goal in her professional career, she also works hard to support the next generation of women, whether it’s coaching cheerleading and teaching the girls their own worth, or supporting her daughter in following a non-traditional path like economics. She also thinks educating the next generation of men is equally important.

“My son hears me on calls all the time and says, ‘Gosh, all you talk about is square footage all day,’” she said. “I’m glad he hears me talk about that; he doesn’t hear me gossiping, he doesn’t hear me talking about what’s going on in school and all these other things. He’s hearing me actually execute business.”

Much of Maureen’s attitude about female empowerment came from her grandmother, who emigrated from Lebanon to the U.S. and took over her parents’ business when she got married. 

“She was extremely smart and had great business acumen, but it was a time when it wasn’t acceptable for a female to go walking into the bank and negotiate,” Maureen said. “She would do every single thing behind the scenes. My dad, uncle and grandfather would come home to my grandmother and she would give the information, she would go through the paperwork, she would do it all and tell them what to do when they went back out.”

Her grandmother also gave Maureen advice when she started the construction business about ownership shares, retirement investment and receiving an equal paycheck.

“There’s an old saying, ‘A woman has to work twice as hard to get half the respect that a man does,’” she said. “That hard work is what I’ve tried to mold for my daughter. I’m a big supporter of female empowerment.”