From a Nigerian immigrant who has closed nearly $3 billion in transactions to a Bronx-born developer rebuilding Baltimore row by row, these are the names rewriting who owns and develops the region.
Real estate is one of the oldest paths to generational wealth in the United States, and also one of the most structurally difficult for Black and African-born entrepreneurs to enter. The numbers are stark. A 2021 analysis by the Urban Land Institute found that only five percent of its members, representing one of the country’s most influential real estate professional bodies, identified as Black or African American. Against that backdrop, the entrepreneurs listed here are not just success stories. They are evidence of what is possible when African diaspora builders gain access to capital, relationships, and opportunity in one of the country’s most dynamic real estate markets.
What follows are ten people shaping DC, Maryland, and Virginia property, in deals ranging from six-figure condo portfolios to billion-dollar affordable housing pipelines.
The developers reshaping DC and its neighborhoods
1. Don Peebles, The Peebles Corporation
Born and raised in Washington DC, R. Donahue “Don” Peebles started his real estate career at 23 as an appraiser and by 26 had broken ground on his first commercial development in Anacostia, a Class A office building delivered through a public-private partnership with the city. That Anacostia project, completed in 1989, launched what became the Peebles Corporation, now widely recognized as one of the largest African American-owned real estate development companies in the United States. The firm’s portfolio spans luxury hotels, high-rise residential towers, and commercial assets in New York, Miami, Washington DC, Boston, and Los Angeles, with total completed and active development exceeding $8 billion, according to the company’s official profile. Peebles pioneered what he calls Affirmative Development, a model that mandates economic inclusion for minority and women-owned businesses across every phase of a project. He maintains an office in DC and remains involved in the city where his career began.
2. Buwa Binitie, Dumas Collective / Dantes Partners
If any single name defines the affordable housing development landscape in Washington DC over the past two decades, it is Buwa Binitie. A Nigerian immigrant who earned a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Binitie founded Dantes Partners in 2006 from the basement of his home with a staff of two. The firm, now operating under the parent company Dumas Collective, has since closed over $2.9 billion in unconventional real estate transactions and financed, developed, or acquired more than 9,000 housing units across Washington DC, Maryland, and New York, according to the company’s own records corroborated by JPMorgan Chase’s community development reporting. Binitie served as chair of the DC Housing Finance Agency Board of Directors, and his firm ranked tenth nationally among affordable housing developers in 2018, per Affordable Housing Finance magazine. Dumas Collective estimates it has channeled $90 million in contracts to other Black- and Brown-owned businesses in recent years.
3. Omar Karim, Banneker Ventures
Named in honor of Benjamin Banneker, the self-taught African American mathematician who helped survey the original boundaries of Washington DC, Banneker Ventures was founded in 2005 by Omar Karim, a Howard University graduate holding both a law degree and a mechanical engineering degree. Karim has since built the firm into one of the region’s most active minority-owned, fully integrated real estate development and construction companies, with a portfolio that has delivered thousands of residential units and millions of square feet of housing, retail, and mixed-use space across DC, Maryland, and Virginia. In 2025, Banneker received the Developer of the Year Award from the African American Real Estate Professionals of DC (AAREP DC). Karim has led more than $500 million in public and private projects over 17 years, per the firm’s own records, and serves on the Maryland Economic Development Corporation board as a gubernatorial appointee.
4. Tom and Terefe Kadida, Kadida Development Group
Brothers Tom and Terefe Kadida co-founded Kadida Development Group (KDG) in Washington DC, growing it from a single-family home flip into a firm managing more than an estimated $327 million in real estate assets across DC, Maryland, and Virginia, according to the company’s website. Tom, who studied computer science at George Mason University, serves as CEO and chairman. Terefe, trained in mechanical engineering, directs construction and design. KDG has developed over one million square feet of multifamily, townhouse, single-family, and commercial properties in the DC metro area, and also maintains active projects in the Horn of Africa, reflecting the founders’ deep ties to East Africa. The firm holds Certified Business Enterprise status with DC’s Department of Small and Local Business Development.
The investor-agents building wealth from the ground up
5. Eze Okwodu, The Eze Way
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Nigeria, Eze Okwodu returned to the United States at 18 with a clear plan. By 25, he had purchased his first two-bedroom condo in Hyattsville, Maryland. Within five years, he owned six condos. “I spend a lot of time in the African community, and everybody talks about home buying,” he told the Washington Informer in 2025. “It’s ingrained in you: go to school, graduate, get married, buy a home. That was the natural progression.” Now a full-time real estate agent and investor with nearly two decades of experience across Prince George’s County and the broader DMV, Okwodu has built one of the region’s most recognizable brands in African diaspora homeownership. He specifically positions himself as a guide for African immigrants navigating the American real estate market, a gap he saw clearly from the inside.
6. Harrison Beacher, Coalition Properties Group
A native Washingtonian and Georgetown University graduate, Harrison Beacher is the managing partner of Coalition Properties Group, a top-producing real estate team affiliated with Keller Williams Capital Properties in the DC metro area. Beacher has closed more than $250 million in personal real estate sales and supported more than 350 families through transactions, according to his firm’s website. His team is closing in on $1 billion in total career sales and has worked with nearly 2,000 families across the DMV. Beacher was named to Realtor Magazine’s national 30 Under 30 Class of 2016, served as the 2022 President of the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors, and was honored as GCAAR’s 2023 Realtor of the Year. He is currently serving as President-elect for the District of Columbia Association of Realtors. His community work has included financial literacy programming in Southeast DC, where he says some of the most meaningful wealth-building education is still most urgently needed.
The developers reimagining affordable housing and hospitality
7. Bree Jones, Parity Homes
Bree Jones did not start in real estate. She started on Wall Street, worked in finance, capital raising, and predictive analytics, then looked around at what was happening to the neighborhood where she had chosen to invest in Baltimore and decided to do something about it. The company she founded, Parity Homes, is a nonprofit real estate developer in West Baltimore focused on buying abandoned properties, renovating them, and selling them at affordable prices to existing residents. Jones has built a portfolio of more than 40 properties, acquiring them through foreclosure auctions, private sales, and the city’s annual tax lien sale, as reported by Next City in 2022. Her buyer collective model, through which families complete a six-month curriculum covering financial planning, community history, and home maintenance before purchasing, was cited by JPMorgan Chase as a national model for equitable development. Jones received a $2 million recoverable grant from JPMorgan Chase and was named a 2024-2025 Obama Foundation USA Leader, a TED Fellow, and an Ashoka Fellow in recognition of her work.
8. Thomas J. Baltimore Jr., Park Hotels and Resorts
Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland after his family relocated from Front Royal, Virginia during his early childhood, Thomas J. Baltimore Jr. grew up in the DC region and built a career that eventually made him one of the most consequential African American executives in American real estate investment. In 2000, he co-founded RLJ Development in Bethesda, Maryland with entrepreneur Robert L. Johnson, building the firm into a powerhouse hotel investment company. Under Baltimore’s leadership, RLJ acquired 19 hotels for $630 million, then completed a 2006 portfolio deal valued at $1.7 billion, and in 2011 led the company’s IPO as RLJ Lodging Trust, which grew to 125 hotels in 21 states with an enterprise value exceeding $4 billion, according to his verified biography from the Horatio Alger Association. Baltimore went on to serve as chairman and CEO of Park Hotels and Resorts, a publicly traded lodging REIT with approximately $8 billion in assets. He remains connected to the DMV through philanthropy and civic leadership, including support for N Street Village, a women’s homeless shelter in Washington DC.
9. Robert L. Johnson, RLJ Companies
Better known as the founder of Black Entertainment Television, Robert L. Johnson built his second act in Bethesda, Maryland, where he established The RLJ Companies in 2002. The holding company co-founded RLJ Development with Thomas Baltimore, which eventually became RLJ Lodging Trust, one of the largest African American-built real estate investment trusts in the country. The company’s real estate operations have spanned hospitality assets across 21 states, and RLJ Companies’ broader portfolio has included private equity, financial services, and automotive holdings. His Bethesda headquarters has anchored a Maryland presence that has made him one of the most prominent African American investors in the national real estate market, with a track record built alongside Thomas Baltimore that spans billions in hotel acquisitions, per Wikipedia’s verified company history and multiple corporate disclosures.
10. Phinis Jones, Capital Services Management
Phinis Jones is the founder and principal of Capital Services Management, Inc. (CSMI), a full-service commercial and residential real estate construction and management firm headquartered in Ward 8, one of the District’s historically underserved quadrants. CSMI offers property management, leasing, development, and sales services across the greater Washington DC area and holds Certified Business Enterprise certification from DC’s Department of Small and Local Business Development, as well as Disadvantaged Business Enterprise designation from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and Maryland Department of Transit, per the company’s official certifications page. His consistent presence in DC’s minority developer ecosystem includes participation in DC Housing Finance Agency project presentations alongside other leading Black developers such as Omar Karim and Tom Kadida, according to DCHFA meeting records.
The common thread across all ten names is not strategy or sector but location and community. Each of these builders, whether they arrived from Lagos or grew up in Silver Spring, chose to invest in a region that has historically closed doors on Black and African-born capital. The five organizations helping African entrepreneurs access capital right now offer a practical companion resource for readers who want to understand the funding infrastructure behind this kind of work. For the community context that shapes why these investments matter, see AfroDMV’s deep profile of the Nigerian diaspora’s growing economic and civic footprint across the DMV and our look at how the Cameroonian community has built its own networks and institutions across the region.
FAQ
Who is the most prominent African American real estate developer based in Washington DC?
R. Donahue “Don” Peebles is widely cited as one of the most successful African American real estate developers in US history. Born and raised in DC, his Peebles Corporation has a development portfolio valued at more than $8 billion spanning commercial, luxury residential, and hotel assets across multiple cities. He began his career in DC in the 1980s.
Are there African immigrant entrepreneurs building real estate businesses in the DMV?
Yes. The most documented example currently active in the region is Buwa Binitie, a Nigerian immigrant who founded Dantes Partners in Washington DC in 2006. The firm has since closed more than $2.9 billion in affordable housing transactions and financed or developed more than 9,000 housing units across the Mid-Atlantic. Eze Okwodu, who grew up in Nigeria and returned to the United States at 18, has also built a well-known real estate investment and brokerage practice in Prince George’s County.
What is the biggest challenge African diaspora developers face in the DMV?
The Washington Post’s 2021 investigation into Black real estate developers found that access to capital and institutional networks, rather than skills or vision, remains the most consistent barrier. Developers including Buwa Binitie and Bree Jones have spoken publicly about the difficulty of securing financing despite strong project records, and both have specifically cited the importance of mission-aligned lenders and public funding sources in making their most significant projects possible.