Advice for Intern for Upcoming Summer
I was very fortunate and lucky to get an acquisitions internship at a PERE top 100 firm last spring.
After the offer, I dropped the ball, just had fun, partied, and kept my grades high. Now that the internship starts within 2 months, I need to get back to learning. The issue I have is that all of my current resources helped me get interviews and offers, but did not necessarily teach me how to be proficient at the job.
What would you expect a junior intern at a PERE 100 firm to be expected to know?
How proficient should I be at Excel by the time I start? I believe that I am a 4-5/10 at best right now.
What real estate financial modeling course would be best for someone at my level?
Are there courses for real estate finance that you recommend I take?
My firm has a training week, but it seems more like a basic review. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
You have plenty of time so don’t worry. Generally the advice you will be given is there is nothing you need to prepare for but I don’t really like that answer. It’s true that whatever skill level you have will be fine provided you work hard during the summer, but you can always make it easier for yourself.
Have a think about your strengths and weaknesses first. This more or less comes down to PowerPoint and Excel so don’t neglect one or the other. It’s really helpful to be good at putting together slides as much as modelling.
In terms of modelling I think Justin Kivel’s Real Estate Financial Modelling Bootcamp on Udemy is a great starting point for a beginner to learn best practice quickly and cheaply. Then practicing to build Kahr’s Challenge Cases (free) from scratch will help to solidify your knowledge/technique.
You could also buy a more in depth course like the REFAI certification or A.CRE accelerator which are both great but not totally necessary.
Good luck.
As a general rule of thumb, interns aren't expected to be perfect or anywhere close (most full time analysts aren't so why would an intern?). Also, I'd say that UG doesn't do a great job at preparing people for the real world for the most part anyways, but it can at least teach the basics. We expect to train everyone that comes into our firm at the intern/analyst/associate level so "how to be proficient at the job" is a lofty goal for someone who will be there for only a few months. So to answer your questions:
1. You should probably know basic finance like DCF models. Then more specifically to real estate, ideally you would know what a cap rate is and how it relates to interest rates, risk profile buckets (core, core plus, value-add, opportunistic), and the basics of what a capital stack is. I would be shocked if they expected you to know how to build a waterfall or pulling a perfect comp list. This list isn't a make-or-break list, but it definitely would leave a good impression on the company that you came in prepared and interested enough about the industry to research ahead of time.
2. The more proficient you can be, the better. You don't need to be at the level where you never touch your mouse and can build a model from scratch in 10 mins, but you should know how to use data tables/goal seek/calculate return metrics/format well.
3. I never used any of these when I was getting into the industry years ago so I will defer to other commentors about this one.
4. Same as above.
Overall, don't stress about making a mistake or not knowing something. That's what an internship is for, to learn. Just work hard, retain as much info as possible, be open minded, and try not to make the same mistake twice (or too many times at least).
Interned at a top 100 as well last summer and I just prepped with REFM courses and watched an ACRE YouTube video once a day for a few weeks before I started and I was prepared for the internship. They will teach you everything the first couples days you get there!
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