Hey guys this is my first post and I'm hoping I got this in the right forum. First I want to say that many of you appear to be very well educated and highly skilled in the world of finance.
I live in San Diego and have been an independent broker since almost out of high school. Since 2000 my emphasis has been commercial, mixed-usage, multifamily sales and financing. All basically conventional deals in the sense that debt was pretty straight forward bank/CU loans or maybe a private mortgage fund here or there. No structured debt and CMBS/Agency loans with yield maintenance prepays are unpopular. Think Chase Bank (huge on the West Coast), 70LTV with conventional DCR's with standard descending prepays.
San Diego is sort of a small big city. There are a lot of small buildings here. The largest private owner of multifamily with a portfolio of 4000+ units owns many coastal buildings as small as 10-15 units. Sure he has the 50+ unit properties as well but here, there just aren't that many. Extremely successful brokers routinely close loans or sales in the $1mm to $7mm range. Sure there are bigger deals but the gravy is around $5mil. There is a lot of money representing a client in an exchange where you list their down-leg, represent them on their up-leg and broker their loan as well.
At 38 years old I have a lot left to offer. I just don't think it's going to happen as an independent broker. I'm seeing REITS hiring all over San Diego and Orange County. A bulk of these positions appear to be in acquisitions and/or finance. My world of acquisitions appears to be entirely different from the corporate world. Complex modeling is rare. Excel is very basic. Rent roll, lease summary, NOI, cap rates, etc. Nothing fancy.
The question is this. As a broker who wants to prepare for the institutional career, which of the many available online courses can get me prepared to be an acquisition manager with some emphasis on analysis? Argus seems fairly straight forward. I'm thinking more Excel based modeling.
In case you haven't found your answer with the search function yet, there are a few options. The BIWS RE course or REFM are both supposedly pretty good(I've done neither, don't need it really as a broker) but cost a decent chunk of change. Both courses are excel centered.
Another option is the NYU non-credit certificates. Not very talked about here, and it's obviously not looked at with the same cachet as a full MSRE/MBA in RE, but you can do a certificate in development, finance and investment, property management, etc. They take about 8 months give or take, all self paced, and cost about $4500 all in.
Of course, none of these have associated networks, aren't super "prestigious", or whatever, but you've likely got a solid network in the SD area so that's not probably an issue, and these can all show prospective employers that you're actually competent insomuch as a noncredit certificate means something.
YMMV, but modeling is modeling. Whether you learn it at Wharton or from Youtube, a DCF is a DCF. You've got the network and the local RE knowledge already, and finance ISN'T hard.
Of course, depending on your background and funding you can always do the MSRE at USD, it's a 10 month program and may be worth more in the long term than some online cert.
What do you want to do? Do you want to join one of the major brokerage firms, or go "in-house" at a firm that owns real estate? It isn't entirely clear to me from your post.
Hey guys, been gone a while and I appreciate the replies. Let me try to address these...
Now that I've been interviewing for a few months I know a bit more where I fit in to this institutional scene. The acquisition role I desire and may get this year (?) will be a deal sourcing role with some Asset Management. Cross department/functional for sure cause I keep hearing that's what "we would hire you to do." I've been selling buildings and financing them for over 15 years across all major asset classes except hospitality. Throw in my leasing experience and they've got themselves a handy little employee.
But these positions are rarely available...
I'm getting lots of phone interviews for Associate Acq positions cause these companies are curious I guess. They're staying in touch, which is encouraging. All have said they won't offer me Associate Acquisition roles...either Acq Mgr or VP level. Keep in mind I have no degree and my modeling is poor. Yet only one company brought up my lack of a degree and they were the same company that wanted me to model from the group up. All other phone interviews and sit downs were about direct acquisitions and closing on deals.
I'm getting most attention from Multifamily investors who own around 5000 units and are growing. Sourcing is what they want and I'm good at that. Additionally, in this active refinance market Asset Management would ask me to get a loan package put together on many buildings and work with lenders/loan committee, escrow, etc. I'm pretty strong there.
Where I don't see myself landing a gig is at a REIT or very large company like CIM or Essex, BioMed. These companies all have the same hiring practices. Bachelors degree required, Analyst experience then a move to Associate level and so on. That's not me...
Financially speaking the opportunity to get a decent salary+bonus+equity is going to come from a smaller company anyway. Those Acq roles are out there and the few companies I've talked to have not balked at my desire to eventually earn equity on deals I acquire.
No, working for a CB or Marcus and Millichap isn't going to happen. I keep 100% of all my commissions as a broker. While those guys get some big deals, and I know a lot of these brokers well, the trenches of SoCal real estate is still under $10mil and I can compete there for now. Shoe leather pays.
theexaspect - I know USD and many of their courses fairly well because I have taken their Argus course. The weekend of May 2nd actually. Argus Enterprise (AE), DCF is the standard but Argus is trending away from DCF despite its popularity. I think I need to add some type of additional education to my resume. I'm literally from the street. I've never went to college. But I was very ambitious and had some fantastic referral sources early on in my career that allowed my business to flourish. The designations or credential courses you mention sound like a nice option and I feel they will have some value. Hey, 8mo and $4500 is a real credential.
My modeling skills are weak versus some of these whiz kids I know who have MSRE's from USD. They're all school and no street and ask what I think are basic questions. But again, they're practicing interviews while I'm learning Excel, something they have licked. As far as Argus goes. It's fairly straight forward but AE has to improve. It's lacks continuity in my opinion. Seems like the engineers didn't take their time.
So, to make a long story even longer, I'm still reaching out to folks and waiting for that gig. In the meantime I'm looking to improve my excel skills and I've got Argus for 6mo.
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