Finance Leader Kevin Thompson On Driving Financial Excellence In Real Estate

The HousingWire award spotlight series highlights the individuals and organizations that have been recognized through our Editors’ Choice Awards. Nominations for HousingWire’s 2025 Finance Leaders Award are open now through January 31, 2025. Click here to nominate a tech organization.

Nominations are still open for the 2025 Finance Leaders award. To celebrate this prestigious recognition, HousingWire reached out to 2023 Finance Leader Kevin Thompson, Head of Finance at PURE Property Management to discuss his approach to navigating challenges in today’s real estate market.

With an eye toward the future, Thompson shared his insights on economic trends, budgeting strategies, and the pivotal role of data and technology in shaping the housing landscape. Thompson earned his Finance Leader recognition as a result of his financial leadership throughout his tenure as Head of Finance which has led PURE to operate profitably as it maintains its high-tech, high-growth, and high-profit focus.

As we gear up for the 2025 Finance Leader awards, his forward-thinking perspective offers a glimpse into the evolving role of finance leaders in real estate.

HousingWire: Looking ahead to 2025, what are the primary economic and market trends you anticipate impacting mortgage and real estate, and how are you adjusting your organization’s financial strategy to navigate these changes?

Kevin Thompson: Cost of capital and supply — there’s increasing consensus within the entire housing ecosystem, including government and media, that supply solves many of the problems that investors and consumers face while delivering a robust and healthy housing economy. Supply, supply, supply. If there’s a silver lining to the recent natural disasters, it’s that we may collectively align faster and act even more aggressively to focus on housing supply solutions.

HousingWire: As a finance exec, how do you approach budgeting in a market where cost pressures, compliance demands, and technology investments are all increasing?

Kevin Thompson: Like any finance executive, it’s finding a balance between growing profit and margins while investing in the company’s people and programs that grow topline revenue, enhance customer experience and brand awareness, and create a unique or lasting competitive advantage. It’s never easy, sometimes emotional, and always involves many meetings to create collaboration among the team, not conflict.

HousingWire: What role do data and technology play in your financial planning and forecasting for 2025, and how are you leveraging these tools to enhance decision-making?

Kevin Thompson: It’s all data and AI-supported analytical technology, especially regarding establishing core assumptions and forecasts. Nothing is ever done by feeling or opinion. We have a culture of two-factor authentication of any assumption or forecast with data. AI is undoubtedly making this faster and easier, and we’re investing heavily into collecting even more experience data to support decisions around customer experience investments.

HousingWire: What are you most excited for in the industry in 2025?

Kevin Thompson: I feel a lot of excitement about the stars aligning sooner than later in 2025, and we will see the return of growth capital, and much less onerously so.