Real Estate Investment Analyst
Carol Hennessey holds both the CFP and CCIM designations and has 14 years of experience analyzing real estate as an investment vehicle. She began her career as a commercial real estate analyst at JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle), where she underwrote office and industrial deals worth more than $500 million combined, before moving into consulting at Marcus & Millichap.
She later led the residential investment research team at Redfin, building the models retail investors use to compare cap rates, cash-on-cash returns, and rent-growth assumptions across markets. That experience shapes how Carol writes today: every article is built around a real number — an actual cap rate, an actual 1031 timeline, an actual STR occupancy rate — rather than generic advice.
Carol's expertise covers REITs, house hacking, short-term rentals via Airbnb and VRBO, 1031 exchanges, and real estate partnership structures. Her work has appeared in BiggerPockets, Motley Fool, and The Real Deal, and she remains a contributor to Bankrate on real estate investing. At MONEYlume, she covers the full spectrum of real estate investing — from a first house-hack duplex to structuring a multi-property 1031 exchange.
View LinkedIn ProfileB.S. Real Estate, University of Southern California; CFP Certificant; CCIM Designation (CCIM Institute)