Our Team

Ivy Zelman

Executive Vice President

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.

As one of the most powerful women on Wall Street, Ivy Zelman is a sought-after expert on the housing sector, and what the overall housing market means for investors, homebuilders, industry executives and the economy at large. She frequently appears on television shows such as CNBC, in major publications including "The Wall Street Journal," and has acted as a key witness in a congressional hearing.

Jim Cramer, host of the CNBC’s show "Mad Money," said “Ivy is the Ax of the homebuilders – the analyst who understands the group better than anyone else on Wall Street.”

Ivy’s speaking engagements include industry conferences, board meetings, podcasts or special events for organizations such as: Bloomberg, CNBC, TD Ameritrade Network, Bloomberg’s Masters in Business, RealCrowd, International Builder Show, MBS Highway, National Association of Homebuilders, NFX, National Association of Realtors, National Organization of Investment Professionals, Mortgage Banking Association, Moody’s, AmeriCatalyst, PropTechCEO Summit, Realty Alliance, Arch | MI and more. She received a Bachelor's of Science from George Mason University. Ivy is a special advisor to the Cleveland-based Laurel School Investment Club, BBYO, as well as a mentor to high school and college students.

Download Ivy's Biography

Alan Ratner, CFA

Managing Director

Alan is a Managing Director at Zelman & Associates. He and his team are responsible for producing all research and financial models for the publicly traded homebuilding and land development companies under coverage, thematic reports covering the single-family for-sale market, as well as the firm’s proprietary homebuilding and land development surveys. He is a CFA charter holder, a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts, and is certified with the Series 7, 24, 63, 86 and 87 licenses.

Prior to the founding of Zelman & Associates, Alan was an associate analyst from 2005 to 2007 at Credit Suisse Group, serving as part of Ivy Zelman’s Equity Research team which has consistently been recognized by Institutional Investor, Greenwich Associates, StarMine and The Wall Street Journal for their industry-leading analysis.

In 2015, Alan became Ivy’s favorite anecdote when he outgrew his 900 square-foot Manhattan apartment and packed up with his family and headed to the suburbs in Westchester. He lives there today with his wife, Jen, and sons, Henry and Max. When he’s not producing high-quality, thought-provoking housing research, you can most likely find him coaching his boys’ little league baseball teams or suffering through another frustrating Mets season.

Alan is a proud graduate of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and has recently come to grips with working for a Buckeye.

Ted Tabasso

Director of Sales

Ted joined Zelman in April of 2017 as Director of Sales. Based in New York, Ted has 25 years of extensive experience with institutional research and investment banking.

Ted got his break in 1993 as an underwriter in the fledging Bear Stearns multifamily conduit where he learned how to underwrite loans for all commercial real estate asset classes. In 1996, he was offered a role on the Bears Stearns Institutional Equity sales desk where he found his career passion working with stocks, investors, and research. He later was assigned to cover SAC Capital and it was here he learned how to really mine research for relevance. In 1999, he was hired by Banc of America Securities to build their New York office. Eventually he joined Deutsche Bank to build out a new sales coverage model. After one year at Deutsche Bank, Ted was asked by management to run the North American research product and eventually became a global head for this division. During this time, he worked with other desks at Deutsche Bank in particular with the ABS desk, which was made known by the book and movie, “The Big Short.”

His role as Director of Sales at Zelman & Associates is a culmination of all his prior work experience, enabling him to bring world class expertise to his clients every day in ways other firms cannot.

Ted finds balance in life through the relationships he has made over his career. Growing up in a suburb of Wilmington, Delaware, Ted attended the University of Delaware and graduate school at the University of San Diego. He continually strives to find ways to give back to his community and mentors. He has one son, Maxwell, who is 20 years old; and enjoys tennis, the gym, and a good cup of coffee.

Tony McGill, CFA

Senior Managing Director & Head of Investment Banking

Tony is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Investment Banking at Zelman, and has led Zelman's origination and execution of public and private debt and equity capital raise and M&A transactions totaling over $30 billion of completed value.

Tony has executed transactions with housing's leading companies including 84 Lumber, American Homes 4 Rent, Arcadia Communities, Blackstone, CalAtlantic, CamWest, Candlelight Homes, Century Communities, Clayton Homes (Berkshire Hathaway), David Weekley Homes, Five Point Communities (Lennar), Goldman Sachs, Green Brick Partners, GTIS, Installed Building Products, Invitation Homes, Lowe Enterprises, Matlin Patterson, MBK Homes (Mitsui), M/I Homes, Meritage Homes, Mungo Homes, National MI, Neal Communities, NVR, PGIM, Pinnacle Homes, Ply Gem, Re/Max, Silver Bay Realty Trust, Sumitomo Forestry, Taylor Morrison, Toll Brothers, TRI Pointe and William Lyon Homes, among other prominent institutional investors and operating companies throughout U.S. housing.

Prior to Zelman, Tony was an Associate Director in Investment Banking at Bear Stearns specializing in public and private capital raise and corporate advisory services.

Tony graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Columbia University in New York and earned his MBA degree with distinction from Oxford.

Alex Virtue

Managing Director

Alex is a Managing Director in the Investment Banking group at Zelman with a focus on Commercial Real Estate and has over 20 years of commercial real estate investment banking, institutional capital raising and advisory experience across real estate sectors.

Over the course of his career, Alex has executed a wide variety of public and private transactions including initial public equity and debt offerings, public securities follow-on offerings, private placements, joint ventures, sell-side and buy-side M&A advisory and real estate valuation as well as managing extensive investor, client and business development responsibilities.

Alex began his investment banking career with Merrill Lynch’s real estate investment banking group in New York and has also held senior investment banking and capital markets positions with Eastdil Secured / Wells Fargo Securities and CBRE Capital Advisors. Over the course of his career, Alex has managed and advised on more than $30 billion of public securities offerings, financial advisory and joint venture transactions on behalf of public and private real estate clients. Most recently, Alex led capital markets at Xebec, a national industrial logistics developer and asset manager, establishing the firm’s first institutional core joint venture program.

Alex earned an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania with concentrations in Finance and Real Estate and a BA in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego.

Stephen Erwin

Chief Legal and Compliance Officer

Mr. Erwin serves as Chief Compliance Officer (“CCO”) of Zelman Partners, LLC and since 2018 as CCO of our affiliated registered investment adviser, Walker & Dunlop Investment Partners (“WDIP”). He also serves as Associate General Counsel of Zelman’s parent company Walker & Dunlop, Inc. (“W&D”)

Prior to joining W&D, Mr. Erwin was the founder and Managing Member of Highlander Compliance Consulting, LLC and the Highlander Law Firm, LLC (“Highlander”), an investment advisory regulatory compliance consulting, outsourced CCO/GC firm servicing complex private fund managers and innovative registered investment adviser firms. In this capacity he served as outside general counsel, CCO and regulatory consultant for real estate and traditional private equity fund managers, hedge funds, and registered investment company fund managers. Stephen also managed his own investment advisory practice providing wealth management and financial planning services to high net worth individuals and families.

Prior to Highlander, Stephen was a member of Scheid, Cleveland & Fein, LLC, a boutique commercial transactions and litigation law firm in Denver, CO, where he focused on investment advisory compliance, commercial transactions, entertainment law and litigation, and served as GC/CCO of multi-strategy fund of hedge funds and wealth management complex.

Mr. Erwin holds a B.S.-Accounting degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his law degree from the Florida State University College of Law. He holds FINRA Series 14 and 65 licenses.