Jun
11
From Monopoly to Market Moves
Mara Fabian’s Long Game in Real Estate

Submitted by Hayleigh DeLoach, Published June 2025

When Mara Fabian reflects on her 26 years at Lowe Enterprises, she speaks with the calm confidence of someone who didn’t just find her lane; she helped pave it. Now a Senior Vice President overseeing commercial and multifamily assets on the west coast, her path into real estate? It started with board games.

It started in a high school accounting class in Birmingham, Alabama, where students played Monopoly every day and tracked their game like real accountants. “We had to pass ‘Go’ and literally debit cash and credit income,” she laughed. “That’s when I knew I loved business and numbers.” That experience sparked her decision to pursue an accounting degree at Jacksonville State University.

After college, Mara landed a role at Barber Dairies, a regional milk and dairy distributor as well as one of Alabama’s largest real estate owners. There, she worked as the mall accountant for Century Plaza, a million square foot mall. “On a daily basis, I was surrounded by leasing, marketing, and management. I was even an extra in the mall’s holiday commercial,” she said with a grin. “That’s when I started to really understand the commercial real estate business as a whole.”