Bank of America’s AJ Barkley: How We Are Helping To Make Housing More Affordable

Given the economic hardships of 2020, we’ve seen a strong focus on affordable homeownership options from the private sector to assist first-time buyers and underserved communities — and this trend will likely persist. Homeownership has traditionally helped families build legacies and wealth over the long term and is especially important today as communities and our society seek to address economic inequality. Since launching in 2019, the Bank of America Community Homeownership Commitment program has provided nearly 24,000 homeowners with almost $6B in affordable mortgages and nearly 20,000 clients received a total of $209M in down payment and/or closing cost grants.

In many large cities in the US, there is a crisis caused by a shortage of affordable housing options. This has led to a host of social challenges. In this series called “How We Are Helping To Make Housing More Affordable” We are talking to successful business leaders, real estate leaders, and builders, who share the initiatives they are undertaking to create more affordable housing options in the US.

As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing AJ Barkley.

AJ Barkley is the Neighborhood Lending and Retail Sales East Executive for Bank of America, responsible for identifying opportunities to drive successful homeownership among low- to moderate-income borrowers, underserved communities, and multicultural borrowers across the economic spectrum. In her role, she is accountable for the company’s Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) commitment and fair lending laws and regulations for home loans, small business, and vehicle lending. She is also responsible for relationship deepening with multicultural, first-time homebuyers and low- to moderate-income consumers through strategic alignment with nonprofits, community advocacy groups, real estate professional organizations, and industry leaders.

Prior to joining Neighborhood Lending, she held many roles at Bank of America. She was the Production Executive for the Plano Centralized and Online Consumer Lending Sales Division, where she led more than 140 lending officers and had national responsibility for employee lending, training redesign and employee engagement. She also was the Merrill Lynch Associate Market Executive in Global Wealth Investments Management in Dallas, TX. In addition, she held multiple roles in Consumer Banking, most recently as the Area Executive for the DFW Metro Market, which totals more than 140 Financial Centers.

A native of Temple Hills, Maryland, AJ is a graduate of Morgan State University. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. AJ is the Co-Executive Sponsor of the Black Professional Group of North Texas and active in multiple employee networks. She is committed to supporting the community and serves on the nonprofit board for Minnie’s Food Pantry. Her passion is supporting organizations that empower and improve opportunities for children and young adults. She and her husband have two sons, three daughters and four grandchildren.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Thanks for having me! In my early 20s, I landed my first job working for General Motors. I quickly realized I wanted something that would be sustainable and that would challenge my inquisitive nature. A year later, I left to work at Citibank where I most enjoyed having a customer-facing role that gave me an opportunity to take some of the things I learned working at GM and work with people, solving problems on a daily basis. Years later I had an opportunity to work for Nations Bank, which is now Bank of America.

In the time that I’ve been with Bank of America — over two decades — I’ve held about 11 roles within the company. These opportunities have afforded me exposure to many areas of the company and experience that has been critical to my career.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?

My career has been very diverse and is constantly evolving — as a matter of fact, I’m still learning and growing. However, when I realized early on in my career that feedback is a ‘gift’, I really began to grow exponentially. Constructive feedback, although sometimes hard to hear, helped me to be more self-aware and conscious of “blind spots”. The impact of leaders around me who embraced and supported my authenticity was also transformational and critical to my success. I was able to bring my whole self to work, which made me more impactful and able to connect with individuals to solve business challenges. I am grateful that these traits are engrained in the Bank of America’s culture, which makes it a great place to work.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There have been many people who have played a role in my career growth along the way. The common thread about those individuals is that they were candid about my strengths and opportunities. They were clear about things I needed to work on to be a more effective leader. Then I had to be honest enough with myself to learn from those opportunities and course correct.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

A long time ago, a dear friend of mine shared: Listen, learn and apply. It has stuck with me and been my mantra ever since. Throughout your life journey, you will get coached, and you will get feedback from those who want to help you get better. You must listen and learn from them, but you must also turn those words into actions and apply them to your daily life in order to be successful.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the shortage of affordable housing. Lack of affordable housing has been a problem for a long time in the United States. But it seems that it has gotten a lot worse over the past five years, particularly in the large cities. I know this is a huge topic, but for the benefit of our readers can you briefly explain to our readers what brought us to this place? Where did this crisis come from?

Simply put, too few homes are available for the number of households today that seek homeownership or rental housing. In places where there are enough homes, for sale or for rent, prices are often out of reach for people.

The pandemic has only added strain to America’s affordable housing supply. We know many individuals are eager to buy and our latest Homebuyer Insights Report found 19% of younger prospective buyers are even accelerating their homebuying timelines, up from 14% who said the same last summer. However, if you’re looking for a home today, you’re likely to see that there aren’t enough on the market to satisfy the demand. Low mortgage rates, in addition to the strong demand, has continued to exacerbate heated bidding wars.

Can you describe to our readers how your work is making an impact to address this crisis? Can you share some of the initiatives you are leading to help correct this issue?

At Bank of America, we recognize that becoming a homeowner can be challenging — both financially and emotionally — which is why we are committed to supporting low- to moderate-income families and communities achieve affordable and sustainable homeownership. Most recently, we expanded our affordable homeownership initiative to $15B through 2025 to help 60,000 people purchase homes. We understand that while many can afford a monthly mortgage payment, saving for the upfront costs of homeownership can be challenging. Our two proprietary grant programs have already accepted thousands of clients with down payment and closing costs, and they receive an average of $14,000 toward the purchase of a home.

The lack of access to financial education is another barrier facing today’s buyers. Homeownership can help create a family legacy and build a path to long-term wealth, making it easier to achieve life goals. However, many would-be buyers aren’t sure how to take the next step. Resources like our First-Time Homebuyer Online Edu-Series provide hopeful homebuyers easy-to-understand online videos designed to make the homebuying process more manageable and set them up for making smart homeownership decisions. Whether we’re working with a first-time buyer or a current homeowner, we strive to help and guide each individual or family make informed, responsible decisions, ultimately leading them to achieve their dream of homeownership.

Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?

As a champion of affordable housing my entire career, I help underserved and multicultural clients and communities and first-time homebuyers realize and obtain the wonderful, rewarding opportunity that is homeownership. Owning a home is still one of the best ways of creating economic mobility, and I am so lucky to be able to help clients knowing that they are not only realizing a dream, but also building a legacy for years to come.

I’m committed to helping young buyers get started on the right foot. Recently, I worked with Her Agenda — a women’s digital media platform working to bridge the gap between ambition and achievement for millennial women — to host a virtual panel discussion debunking homeownership myths and addressing questions that make homeownership seem unattainable. The questions I received from the Her Agenda audience inspired me, as I was touched to see future generations so excited and eager to learn about this topic

Can you share something that the community and society can do to help you address the root of this crisis? Can you give some examples?

Given the economic hardships of 2020, we’ve seen a strong focus on affordable homeownership options from the private sector to assist first-time buyers and underserved communities — and this trend will likely persist. Homeownership has traditionally helped families build legacies and wealth over the long term and is especially important today as communities and our society seek to address economic inequality.

Since launching in 2019, the Bank of America Community Homeownership Commitment program has provided nearly 24,000 homeowners with almost $6B in affordable mortgages and nearly 20,000 clients received a total of $209M in down payment and/or closing cost grants.

These efforts complement the $1.25 billion, four-year commitment made by Bank of America to help local communities address economic and racial inequality accelerated by the global pandemic. This commitment focuses on supporting people and communities of color that have experienced a greater impact from the health crisis, with a particular focus on health and healthcare, jobs/reskilling, small business, and affordable housing.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started leading my team” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. Absorb as much as you can along the way. I wish I had challenged looked beyond my immediate job function; that would have accelerated my impact on the jobs I had.
2. Make time for self-care. Show up as the best version of yourself every day and show your teams that they can take time for themselves. It has become more and more important for me to do things like go to the doctor when I need to go to the doctor. I know that probably sounds silly, but go to the dentist when you need to go to the dentist. Make time for things like that and make appropriate time for self-care.
3. Pay it forward. What success is for me is being able to pay it forward. It’s being vulnerable and sharing the good and the bad in terms of my work experiences and life experiences, so people can benefit from them. For me, it’s been about doing what’s going to have the most impact on teammates and clients, and to help deliver on what our company’s mission is.
4. Surround yourself with smart people. I have learned over the years to pause and keep very bright people around me to tell me when I’m way in left field or way in right field. Receiving thoughtful and direct feedback from those around has been so effective in pushing me to be a better leader.
5. Build a team that is diverse in the way they think and the way they see the world. Diverse teams will bring broader ideas and new perspectives to the table. Every day, I’m inspired listening to my teams and the ideas they bring to the table.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

It seems simple but sometimes is the hardest thing for people to do. Ask questions — be intellectually curious. Questions help you gain a deeper level of knowledge and broadens your perspective.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

For more on Bank of America’s Community Homeownership Commitment, please visit us at www.bankofamerica/homeowner. You can also follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.