Wildflower was founded on its unique ability to develop creative, long-term investment opportunities while making a difference in the communities we operate in.
By providing an affordable pathway to homeownership for many individuals and families and inspiring a higher standard of living, we stand to thrive in the most unlikely places like wildflowers. Founded by Karen Fan, Wildflower Communities is a privately held, vertically integrated real estate investment firm that focuses on acquiring, operating, and developing the most affordable type of housing in America, manufactured housing communities. Today, we are a widely respected manufactured housing community operator with a strong presence throughout the Southeast.
Wildflower provides our investors with access to the highest quality investments that can withstand and prosper through the most volatile real estate markets, while maximizing risk-adjusted returns.
Leadership - Disciplined but entrepreneurial with sophisticated institutional level perspective.
Karen Fan
Founder & Principal
As the founder and principal of Wildflower Communities, Karen is responsible for the investment strategy, all aspects of acquisitions, implementation of capital improvement plans, and day-to-day management of her communities. She is committed to being an advocate and innovator of quality, affordable housing in our country.
Throughout her career in real estate, she has been involved in the acquisition and disposition of over $60,000,000 worth of real estate investments. Prior, she was involved in real estate acquisitions for a prominent New York Real Estate family member who owns over 2,000,000 SF of real estate including premier retail, hotel, and office assets valued at over $1 Billion. Karen also worked in investment sales at Eastern Consolidated. Prior to her career in real estate, Karen worked with and consulted for senior executive leaders at Fortune 50 companies to design and champion company HR best practices to attract, engage, and retain talent.
Karen is passionate about helping local communities. She is a supporter of Robin Hood, the former elected Chair of the Young Professionals Board at KickStart International, and a young patron of several art museums. She is also a member of the Florida Manufactured Housing Association and NYU Schack Alumni Real Estate Council.
Karen holds a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of Michigan, a Master of Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University, and a M.S. for Real Estate Development at New York University, where she was elected Class President and selected as an Urban Leadership Scholarship recipient. When she is not operating manufactured housing communities, she enjoys Pilates & yoga, fitness, traveling, photography, interior design, and is a music lover. Fun fact, she has done a polar plunge in Antarctica, has lived and worked overseas in India and France, while also having traveled to 36 countries across all seven continents. She primarily resides in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York City and spends considerable time in Florida.