Ivy Zelman, Executive Vice President and Co-Founder of Zelman & Associates is a highly respected thought leader for housing and housing related industries, has been guiding investors and corporate executives toward business success for roughly 30 years. In 2007, Ivy co-founded Zelman & Associates which is the leading housing research firm nationwide, serving institutional and private equity investors, and corporate executives from the homebuilding, building products, real estate, mortgage finance and rental sectors, and more. Her firm provides unequalled in-depth analyses across all aspects of the housing spectrum. Ivy’s methodology, which puts Zelman & Associates in its own league, remains strongly rooted in the ability to perform thematic research overlaid with proprietary surveys to produce unparalleled, differentiated, value-added research.
Ivy is widely known and respected for her bold thinking and accurate assessments where others failed, helping industry players avoid costly mistakes and capture game-changing opportunities. In 2005, she alone called the top of the housing market. From there, Ivy called the bottom of the housing market in January 2012, thus reinforcing her dominant reputation within the industry. Her analytical ability and strong conviction has made her the expert experts turn to and follow.
Ivy’s role as the leading expert in her field further took off when she famously asked Toll Brothers CEO, Bob Toll, on the Q4 2006 Toll Brothers conference call “Which Kool-Aid Are You Drinking?” She helped best-selling writer, Michael Lewis, with research related to the mortgage crash which became a part of his best-selling book turned movie, "The Big Short." Michael wrote in the book “all roads led to Ivy.”
Most notably, Ivy was inducted into the Institutional Investors - America Research Team’s inaugural Hall of Fame in 2012 as a result of Ivy and her team earning eleven 1st place rankings (1999 – 2004, 2006 – 2007 and 2010 – 2013). Additionally, Hanley Wood, a leading real estate media firm, ranked Ivy as 14th of the Top 50 most influential persons in housing. In 2020, Ivy was included in Barron's Top 100 Women in U.S. Finance.