Acquisitions/AM Comp (non-NY)

Would like to start a comp thread for associate+ acquisitions/AM in non-NYC only markets.

Title: Acquisitions Senior Associate Salary: $150,000 Bonus: $0 Acquisition fees: $20k Carry: 2% Firm AUM: $500M

51 Comments
 

We're a start up firm. $500MM in AUM so the fees have a hard time covering payroll. Then again, you're at a similar AUM company and getting paid better. I only have 3 YOE (call it title inflation) and have really good WLB/flexibility so that could explain it. I'm basically solo running the day to day AM operations so higher pay would be nice :')

 

Serious question, but what can someone direct with 3 years of experience. I wonder if jumping into a director role so early is a net-negative given the opportunity cost of learning the fundamentals and basics in a structured or institutional environment. 

As a director I imagine you are tasked with raising capital, speaking with LPs, and communicating your position and pricing to other market participants. I can't see how that can be effectively done with only 3 yrs experience, but I would be interested to better understand your or others thoughts. 

Nothing in finance is rocket science, but a lot of critical items do take experience, like negotiating loan covenants or a JV structure, or identifying land mines in a diligence process. I could be wrong tho. 

 
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Commissions and fees:

Serious question, but what can someone direct with 3 years of experience. I wonder if jumping into a director role so early is a net-negative given the opportunity cost of learning the fundamentals and basics in a structured or institutional environment. 



As a director I imagine you are tasked with raising capital, speaking with LPs, and communicating your position and pricing to other market participants. I can't see how that can be effectively done with only 3 yrs experience, but I would be interested to better understand your or others thoughts. 



Nothing in finance is rocket science, but a lot of critical items do take experience, like negotiating loan covenants or a JV structure, or identifying land mines in a diligence process. I could be wrong tho. 


I'm the "director" above. You're not entirely wrong here. But something to consider is that, again, I work for a start-up operator where the entire team, all the way up to the principal, is relatively inexperienced. The opportunity cost, for someone with 3 YOE working my firm, isn't the inability to learn the fundamentals in a structured environment. That's because this isn't a structured environment, and it's certainly not institutional.

I've had to build processes and sophistication into what we do. Everyone in my company is implicitly tasked with that, along with the actual operating of RE. Because there's no road map or predecessor, if you want to accomplish what's needed to "do" RE, you need to figure out how to do it yourself; and you don't want to have to figure it out twice on the next go around, so you build a process around it.

So I, as a director with 3 YOE, am figuring it out as I go. That's the nature of my role in such a company. I start out ineffective, but then I build the experience needed to be effective through. That brings me to a 2nd point.

Being put into a director role with such little experience is drinking from a fire hose. While you might not learn "good fundamentals" in a supportive environment, if you can handle the chaos for a little, you learn enough to be effective and fast track your experience. In my role, I'm being exposed to everything from analyst-level underwriting to VP-level lease negotiations, from accountant-level GAAP guidelines to contractor-level building systems. 1 year at my job is some people's 3 or 4 years, experience wise.

So to answer your question about what is beneficial about having a director with 3 YOE, either for himself or the company, the answer is that this person becomes "a self-directed employee whose rapid and broad exposure in a chaotic environment quickly makes him effective, despite his YOE".

 
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We actually don't have a fund in-house - yet. We originate, underwrite, and then syndicate to capital allocators. The plan is to do that until we have $1bln in AUM and then go raise a fund. But all of our deals have a fee and promote structure and we take a heavy servicing fee on AUM so it is profitable and you don't have the pressure of a fund to report to.

 
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For this year it's hard to say. Currently UC on a $20m small bay deal which could bring in some acq fee revenue. Still executing on biz plan on a few small value-add deals in the portfolio likely to stabilize in the next year or two. IMO our underwriting (capex, MLAs, exit cap) was pretty conservative even given today's conditions and leasing demand has been strong so promote could be +/-$30-50k each. Definitely hard to speculate on this.. which is sizable concern of mine in this role given the base salary level.

 
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I always try to reccomend that you don't get too caught up in being underpaid at analyst / associate levels. 4 - 7 years of your career are at this level vs 30+ at the VP and beyond where the differences in comp can be $300k a year instead of $30k a year. Focus on getting the right experience and getting into a great group that you can grow into a high paying VP role, but still keep in mind that being underpaid as an analyst or associate usually tends to correlate with that firm also underpaying their senior levels as well. 

 

Title: Acquisition Intern
YOE: 3/12ths
Hourly: $16
Bonus: $0
Acquisition fees: $0
Carry: $0
Firm AUM: $5B
:)

 

Title: Senior AM Analyst
Salary: $130k
Bonus: target 30%
Market: southwest
Carry: none
AUM: big national developer
YOE: new to CRE (career switcher). Previously 6 years of IB/PE and top MBA.

How am I doing? Understand the job market sucks and I lucked out getting a gig. Would be good to know if I’m doing well on comp/should keep cruising here or need to think about how to go get a promotion/raise/better shake.

 
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None of this is meant to brag, just painting the picture:

  • I don’t need the salary income. I care that it’s market, but I won’t starve either way. I stashed like a demon, had some investment wins and could do alright on just the dividends. If this all evaporated, my family would pick me up and put me back on my feet. I could go open an ice cream parlor if I wanted. I want to be a real estate guy. I find it fun.

  • I get a lot of value from learning from the guys at work. The job is chill enough that I have bandwidth to look at deals with friends/family. Got a couple properties now and looking for more.

  • Admittedly, I'm in an unusual spot. With my CV, it’s probably going to be tricky/political to move up within a big development shop. There’s an incumbent management layer (10+ year guys) who I’d have to jump over. If you have any thoughts on how to “play the game” and do this well, I am all ears. Of course, more likely than not, I'm going to be doing my own thing before long.

  • I have complete freedom. If the work stops being interesting, my side hustle properties and investments become my main hustle.

 

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