Hi,
I want to break into RE acquisition roles, but I realized I want to do this pretty late in the game, and am feeling pretty hopeless as I don't have any relavant experience. My bankground is as follows:
School: semi-target BBA in finance and accounting (think Emory, Duke, Vanderbilt, etc)
Job: Equity Research at a pretty reputable MM bank covering industrial companies (2 years, and 1 year of covering the consumer sector)
Is it possible to break in by 1) networking, learning the industry + how to model on my own?, would 2) doing REIB help? Or 3) is MBA the must?
I started looking into buying a house for my own investment. Real estate is my passion, so I will be studying and investing regardless of whether I make the switch or not, but I think it would be amazing to combine passion + skill sets together for my career! Any advice would be greatly appreciated..
The path to real estate isn't as clear cut as finance. With some solid effort I think you could find a job as an analyst. I would start by finding some alumni in real estate on LinkedIn and asking them to grab a coffee and ask their advice. Chances are if you do that with enough people, one of them will know someone looking to hire an analyst. On top of that, I would reach out to some recruiters. And before you do these things, I would study a real estate text book, teach yourself to build some simple real estate models, and take a class to learn Argus.
Thank you!!! Your insight definitely helped.. Any one else has seen a similar transition or other advice?
I work in MF Acquisitions and have a far less relevant resume than you prior to my MBA (MBA is not a must, though I'm glad I have it). I'm also pretty sure that I'm older than you, so don't think you're too "late to the game."
What got me my position? 80+ informational interviews, countless emails/phone calls/LinkedIn messages, and never giving up. Rewrite your resume so that everything about it points to "I like doing deals (even if you haven't done them), I love real estate, I keep up to date with what's happening in [office/industrial/multifamily/retail]."
The exact chain of networking that led to my job went:
I wrote all this out not to try and sound cool but to illustrate that networking is your first, second, and third most important tool for getting what you want in commercial real estate.
You should definitely try to network with REIT ER people. The good ones are always well connected.
You can absolutely make the switch purely through hustle and networking, as @bd.charlus pointed out. RE recruiting is much more fluid and entrepreneurial as a whole, so you can make the switch to a boutique shop to break in and then go from there. I made the move from consulting by networking and crafting my story, no MBA required. You know the industrial world well - there are shops that focus purely on this, so it's a great place to start and would fit very well with your story.
Thank you for your advice brosephstalin and prospie!! But could you please expand more on shops that focus on the industrial world? Do you have an example??
BTW, I cover chemical companies (which is under the Industrials umbrella), so I am not sure how relevant it would be to the industrial real estate world you are referring to...
There are plenty of REITs that focus on industrial. Prologis is the biggest, but a bit of poking around on Google should give you lots of leads. I'm not in the space or I'd list off specific names.
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