Student contemplating career path

Ivy league is definetly not as important as it is in banking. I would recommend you try to get some experience at your lokal broker as an unpaid internship so you can learn about the market. Making one million in a year seems to be quite a high goal for someone your age, maybe you should take smaller steps towards your goal, e.g. college, internships, experience.

Hayekian:

Ivy league is definetly not as important as it is in banking. I would recommend you try to get some experience at your lokal broker as an unpaid internship so you can learn about the market.
Making one million in a year seems to be quite a high goal for someone your age, maybe you should take smaller steps towards your goal, e.g. college, internships, experience.

I don't even understand why income is an issue for the OP. If you love what you are doing, why are you asking for when you are going to make your first million when 16? I smell a lot of BS here.That being said, you can make a million per year depending on what you are exactly doing and how good you are. There is no way of predicting when YOU are going to get there. I think that, unless you change, won't ever get near the 1 million mark because you are not genuinely interested in the industry. Just my $.02

kinghongkong:

why are you asking for when you are going to make your first million when 16?

Who cares? Good for that kid for having a dream.

mzcool:

Hi guys. I'm a 16 year old high school student from NJ.

Just wanted to start off by saying that ever since I've been little, I've been interested in real estate. Every where I went, I picked up one of those free real estate guide, and pretty much by the time I was 10, knew the average real estate prices in most major areas in the country and had the ability to estimate how much a house would sell for. I'm interested in a real estate investment career along with other financial careers, because I love real estate.

I'd like to know if Ivy status matters at RE investment firms and if you can get a job at an RE investment firm with a Rutgers/similar state school degree. I'd also like to know the potential salaries and if it is possible to make more than one million dollars in one year as a real estate investor working for a company. By one million dollars in a year, I don't mean as a first year salary, I mean if its possible to have that kind of salary at any point in the career and what point would that be.

Good for you for getting interested and informed so young. When I was 16 I was far more worried about football practice and getting laid in the backseat of my shit can of a car. (Although I would recommend those as well)

Ivy league isn't necessary, but prestige and education have rarely hurt anyone. Also, if you want to work for a blue chip someday (Blackstone Real Estate, etc.) you're going to want to have some pedigree on your resume. Still, I went to a school far "worse" than Rutgers and I work for a top 3 brokerage company.

As far as netting a million a year in commercial real estate, it certainly is possible, but certainly not in salary. Brokers can make that much as a commission, REPE guys can make that much with profit sharing, developers can make that much with rent collection, etc. Of course it's not guaranteed or even necessarily likely, but since you asked if it was possible, the answer is definitely yes.

+1 for what CRE said. The fact that OP is thinking about RE now at his age is probably more important than anything and will affect his long term success.

OP, I would work on cobbling together the skill-sets that are most dispositive to doing well in RE investment game. Those being in my opinion, finance, law and an overall real estate curriculum. You could always do your Rutgers undergrad in economics and finance, network like crazy during that that time aiming for a analyst role with a metro area investment firm out of college (and take it from there).

Rutgers has many alums in the RE investment game (do a linkedin search with the school and 'real estate investment'), and now has a dedicated real estate program:

See (cannot post links yet) the businessweek article entitled "among-mbas-real-estate-training-is-hot"

Well thank you for your advice. Got a few more questions, one of them may sound silly. First one, are the bonuses comparable to IB? Second, would the fact that I convinced my parents to buy my neighbor's run down house for a cheap price when it was put on the market, knock it down, and built a duplex in it's place, with each side selling for more than double the price we paid for the whole house, be something that is believable on a resume, because that is something I am going to follow through with. Now for the silly one, and this isn't directly real estate investment related.

When I was outside of the GS building in Downtown Manhattan, I saw a line of black town cars. Who are those for? Company execs? Or does any employee get to use those as a perk?