As I’m set to graduate in May, I'm thinking about trying to land an Asset Management Analyst role at a Commercial Real Estate Investment Firm locally while I pursue my MS in Finance degree. Does anyone have insight on transferring to IB after a few years in CRE? I know this can and has been done but is definitely not an ordinary route. Thanks.
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I think you'll get better advice if you look for people that have actually made this jump on LinkedIn and try to hop on the phone with them.
For my $0.02 idk why you'd want to do IB anyway. All of us are just waiting to leave for Investment roles in 2 years anyway. Maybe focus on lateralling to a bigger/better RE acquisitions role? Of those that have left RE IB groups to do acquisitions, I doubt many of them have ever looked back or missed IB bitch work.
Not OP, but can shed some light since I'm currently exploring a similar move. The reason why I'm looking at IBD is because of how it functions as a stepping stone to traditional (corporate) buyside firms (PE/HFs). The ultimate goal is to be in an investing seat, and even though I'm in one now (currently work in RE acquisitions for a MM fund focused on a specific product type), it can be especially hard to make a move directly from RE to corporate buyside without IBD since the financial modeling is different (and in all honesty, less complicated)
Thanks, had an initial talk w a President at the firm and they want to bring me on as an Acquisitions Analyst, not AM Analyst. So I guess that would be a little more pertinent experience but not really.
I did this exact process. Started at a Real Estate PE fund doing JV investments and wanted to do corporate securities investing. I did Real Estate IB at an EBish bank for two years, lateralling from my RE Investments role. I was ultimately able to find a role with one of the buy-side accounts my IB firm has done several deals with. Now I do Special Sits investing at a large ~$15B AUM credit & asset-backed securities shop.
It was totally worth it. IB gives you a hell of a skill set and education on business & corporate finance. By the end of my two years I was done with it, but at that point I had a really broad set of exit options available and found a great role that I'm still in today. I feel that it opened up significant doors and I could have done many things with the education it gave me. There's no reason you can't go right back to Real Estate Acquisitions from IB either.
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May need to do an MBA to get to BB/EB, or to do it in the most timely fashion at least. Even for RE IB it's just not that common to come from an AM or even acquisitions seat.
I personally would drop the MS Fin, it's expensive for zero benefit - maybe study for the GMAT in your spare time, and simultaneously try to lateral to a MM/regional RE IB role + start building your MBA app in case you find yourself getting little traction
Modeling, basic financial analysis are probably shortcomings you will need to demonstrate that you have overcome.
I don't see many people graduating from real estate degrees going into IB to be honest
I've seen others make the jump but it takes a bit of scrappiness I'd assume. Just logically, if my IB group was hiring, we wouldn't naturally see a former Real Estate Asset Manger as the clearest target. It's just that people from Audit, Transaction Advisory, Consulting, FP&A, etc. tend to have more overlapping skills. Then you've got plenty of actual IBankers out there. So being a Real Estate AM professional in the mix doesn't do you many natural favors, even at a RE IB group it isn't common.
What about working in Acquisitions (instead of AM) and trying to move into real estate IB afterwards?
I'll let someone who works in REIB opine. The one guy who I saw do it had to move from Associate to Analyst, but then got promoted back up to Associate within a year.
How do corporate functions like audit and fp&a have more relevant skills to lateral into banking? Thought valuation and deal work would be most ideal even if it’s RE.
I think you could pull this off through a mixture of networking, story, and technicals. You may not end up at GS, JPM, or some EB. However, there are a lot of “real estate” type people in the REGAL Groups across the street who would value asset level experience. If you have a good story, display your corporate finance knowledge, and sell why you’d be a good fit I think you could make this happen. For interviews, have the 400 questions down as well as specific real estate IB technicals. In a better job market you could definitely make this happen, in today’s market I still think it’s possible.
Not OP but thanks for the color - thinking about making a similar move coming from a MM REPE firm doing asset-level investments. Any idea what REGAL groups on the street are known for taking these types of profiles? Obviously will try to shoot for everyone, but wondered if you had any targeted insight
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