To my fellow Real Estate Bankers
Closing in on the 1 year mark at a BB’s real estate team, and getting more inbounds from recruiters.
The conversations always go great and they love my profile since I’m a Euro speaker, but once I mention the real estate team, the convos tend to die off quickly. I try to steer the convo towards me working a lot with OpCos in other sectors such as healthcare (I.e. clinics) or tech (we do some data center stuff) but the recruiters don’t seem to care too much about that.
For context, I am looking to move to a more traditional corp PE seat. I am not fussed about MF as I’m looking for better hours, however am shooting for a more UMM/ well known place as I feel otherwise my IB grind wasn’t worth it.
Is there anyone here who has successfully done the switch and can shed some light on this? How can I improve my conversations / chances?
Why don’t you look at real estate pe as opposed to corporate pe? Pays the same at megafunds, hours are generally a little better, and you have all the same prestige. My friend moved from traditional M&A at a top BB to a similar repe role, and loves it for all those reasons. If you’re still interested in re, I can’t imagine why you would want to move to vanilla pe.
Interesting point about the hours, all associates at MFs I have worked with looked absolutely miserable, so I guess “better hours” is a matter of definition.
With regards to your question, I feel that real estate, unless at the top top funds, gets repetitive and isn’t as dynamic as other sectors. Once you get to the MM/LMM Region it’s sometimes even single asset transactions.
Don’t get me wrong, not trying to necessarily exit RE, but just want to keep some optionality.
Are you still in banking, and if so, RE?
OP may have not mentioned this, but real estate is shit right now. Real estate private equity is shit and it’s forecasted to be shit for the next few years. Getting out of real estate is not a bad idea.
OP, try to sell yourself as a corporate platform guy. They think you’re talking about property level stuff, try to talk about the capital market services your team does for REITS. Also, you may be communicating to them in a way where you think they understand what you’re doing, which is making you come off as a real estate guy. Try to simplify.
Out of curiosity, would you say that you or people in your group are potentially keen to be career bankers? I am currently working for a large fund, and was doing development before. I would potentially like to do the reverse move and join IBD for different reasons, so interested to hear your thoughts.
Definitely!
Our MDs and also VPs live and breathe real estate. Picture it like Saturday midnight, and I’m getting emails from them where they summarise some RE research reports and say how fascinated they are by the findings etc. (personally, not on that level of passionate)
On your profile, it’s definitely not uncommon. I have colleagues that worked at funds before and then decided to join the RE IB team.
Thanks for answering so quickly! Are you based in the US or Europe out of curiosity?
That’s an interesting take. I wouldn’t be that passionate as well, to enjoy summarizing research reports on Saturday night, but can see your point.
Also interested that you have seen that reverse path as everyone I speak about that move was telling me that I am crazy as f*ck
I’m in London
Try moving to a different team within the bank or a competitor. Even <1 year at that place you should be in a much better spot to recruit for corporate PE. I'm sure you've already thought of this, and it is painful yes, but that is the most viable way to not have to make too big of a compromise with which fund you end up at.
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