Courtney Hughson, 28
Vice president at CBRE
Courtney Hughson caught the real estate bug after attending college in the South.
She grew up in Westchester County with her father and older sister, who both worked in real estate finance. Hughson chose Vanderbilt University because she was drawn to Nashville’s food and country music scenes and its balmy weather, but her family led her to major in economics.
“I knew I wanted to go down the finance path,” she said. “My dad has been in real estate for my whole life, and I was exposed to real estate at a young age.”
Hughson got an internship in college at Wells Fargo’s large loans group, where she learned about real estate lending, market research, and how deals were structured. Her first job after graduating in 2019 was with CBRE’s consulting group on the tenant rep side, where she modeled and analyzed different transaction structures to help her clients. Six months later, she was working from home after New York City shut down.
“It was definitely a transition, especially being new to the job and having to learn everything remotely,” she said. “There was a big lull in activity, so we were doing what we could to stay relevant with our clients by providing market updates.”
Hughson has since worked with auction house Christie’s, which contemplated relocating its New York office but chose to renew its 373,000-square-foot lease at 20 Rockefeller Center for 20 years. “They wanted to relocate to make a splash, but upon further due diligence and diving deeper we decided a renewal would be the best way forward,” she said. “Given how their operations worked, we weren’t able to find a solution that made financial sense for them.”
Hughson now lives in Williamsburg, where she enjoys hot yoga classes, baking and doing puzzles, which she picked up during the pandemic. Her current neighborhood has some of the best views of the city’s skyline.
“I live not too far from Domino Park and I walk there often,” she said. “The amount of people out here on any given day is surprising. It’s a whole new neighborhood.”
