Alternative Path from UHNW Family: Master’s → REPE → Building My Own Investment Platform (Looking for Advice)
Hi everyone,
I wanted to get some perspective on my long-term plan since I’m not necessarily following the classic IB → PE → MBA track.
I’m currently studying for my undergrad at a target European school and by graduation will have about two years of cumulative internship experience, including:
- Market / Quant experience at a major European bank
- Mid-cap M&A advisory internship
- Alternative assets investment team (real estate, infrastructure, private credit)
Rather than working full-time immediately, I plan to pursue a specialized Master’s (most likely Real Estate or Finance) in the U.S. or UK, to deepen my technical skills and open doors into real estate private equity (REPE) or private credit / infrastructure investing. Ideally post my Master’s I would do this for 2-3 years.
Long-term, I come from a family with a substantial investment base (high 8-figure range, approaching 9-figures), and my goal is to build a professional investment platform around that capital — effectively a modern family office type structure combining direct real estate ownership with an asset-management and advisory arm.
The broader vision is to establish a foothold in the U.S. market, particularly in mixed-strategy NYC multifamily, and grow the platform step by step before potentially bringing in external co-investors or partners.
So my main questions are:
- Given my background and goals, would you still go through the traditional IB → PE → MBA route, or focus on building specialized investing experience (REPE / credit / infra) and scaling from there?
- Are there major downsides to skipping IB or the MBA if the endgame isn’t large-cap PE, but building a scalable investment business?
- If you were in my shoes, what would you do?
I’d really appreciate any honest input — especially from people who’ve gone into REPE, family offices, or entrepreneurial investment ventures. My goal is to make deliberate, strategic career choices rather than chase prestige for its own sake.
Thanks in advance for any insights.
Not tax/investment advice.
“High 8 low 9” figure NW is not going to give you the scale / human capital needed to be successful in an overseas (to you) market.
NYC RE is very complex with many sophisticated/entrenched players and housing in particular is heavily/increasingly regulated. Taxes (eg FIRPTA, dividend withholding) will kill your returns and make you even less competitive against locals with market knowledge.
Would maybe look to access US private RE through retail vehicles from credible sponsors, then maybe coinvest alongside credible family offices.
Its not complex. Co-GP to learn the business then launch take outside capital and fund your GP 100%.
Thanks a lot for the thoughtful feedback. I really appreciate you taking the time to share that perspective.
I genuinely love New York City and would love to make something work there long term. I’m well aware that my current scale is nothing in the broader market context, and I’m definitely not trying to compete with Blackstone or the big institutional players.
My thinking was more around targeting smaller sub-10-unit brownstones with a value-add angle, where competition from larger players is limited and where lean operations can still generate acceptable returns.
For scale, I’ve been exploring the idea of adding an advisory/asset-management arm alongside my own capital base. That way, I could build relationships, structure deals, and eventually coinvest.
Really appreciate your insight on the tax and local complexity side, that’s super helpful. Out of curiosity, if you were in my position, how would you approach it/ if not at all, what would you do?
A few things:
1. Let’s say your US RE allocation is 10%. At US$100mm (low 9 high 8 figures) that’s ~$10mm equity. That’s not even close to be enough for you to have a real team focusing on RE let alone US RE. Would say you need probably 10x that to even have a couple of investment/dev professionals. You will be basically doing whatever strategy by yourself. Forget about the “asset management arm” or whatever.
2. You will be dinged basically at every turn if you want to renovate a brownstone. You don’t know US property law and you don’t know the NY state / city specifics. You have no GC relationships / experience. You don’t know the trades people and their unions. You probably won’t know how much things should cost. Exit liquidity is not great. Reno is also very labor intensive without a team so you will be losing a lot of time and manpower to managing the deals.
3. Taxes will kill your returns and by extension your ability to win auctions. FIRPTA. Dividend withholding. No favorable capital gains treatment. US direct RE is not particularly popular with foreign non exempt persons for a reason. Not tax advice.
4. I think you underestimate how expensive New York is. Look up multifamily stabilized yields here. Don’t know why anyone who seek it out specifically especially given the policy environment.
Also fair. The tax friction points and structuring hurdles (FIRPTA etc.) are significant and not something I can network my way around. I’d need to get proper legal and tax setups before even considering any US direct investments. Even with this advice things would get messy (taxes prob. always are, especially in my situation).
I Appreciate the detailed and blunt feedback a lot. It’s exactly what I was looking for. I’m still quite early in my career and try to see what I can make work amd what to avoid.
Here's my honest input:
If you can't be bothered to even write a thread without resorting to generative text, I'm not going to be bothered to read past all of your strange bolded terms, because you're not going to succeed with that level of laziness.
If I were in your shoes, I would learn to put the minimal amount of effort into things instead of relying on the slop machine.
Fair take, but I think you’re reading too much into it. My primary use of AI was for enhancing structure and flow. About 80-90% of the text itself is 1:1 my work. In my opinion, employing a tool to refine my writing doesn’t inherently indicate laziness. Some of what I said might seem generic; however, this is just to not to dox myself for obvious reasons.
For context, English isn’t my first language, so it can be helpful to run my draft through AI to make sure it reads clearly.
I understand where you’re coming from about overreliance, and I’ll take that note for the future. I definitely know people who overuse AI, something I look at critically myself. I would not place myself into that category, as I just wanted to make sure that the flow is okay. That being said, I would still appreciate your opinion on the matter. I hope I could clear up some things with this response.
Sub 10 unit brownstones is a super competitive space and institutions such as KKR buy here. If you want to buy here, skip the grad degree - you don’t need it. Come after college and get a real estate job here. Learn the market. In 5-10 years start buying.
I didn’t know that, thank you for that insight. I’ll definitely try to find a role in NYC after graduation and start getting hands-on market experience.
The main reasons I was considering a Master’s were:
1. to get more specialized NYC real estate exposure
2. to have the option to work in the U.S. temporarily afterward (especially with the recent H-1B changes)
3. because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do and kind of wanted to “check that box” early on
But your point makes sense. It’s probably smarter to focus on getting into the market first. I’ll try my luck with landing a role and plan out from there. Really appreciate the advice.
Completely agree with pudding here. NYC is not a market you just jump into. There's a fuck ton of red tape, bureaucracy, regulations, rent control/stabilization etc (there's a reason there's such a deep housing shortage there)...I'm also in pretty restrictive market, but when I hear the guys on here talk about NYC real estate it makes me even more certain that I will never invest there. Furthermore, NYC real estate is very expensive and competitive. You need an edge and no, just having capital is not an edge for a market like NYC. Every investor has capital. You need to be doing something that others are not or have knowledge that few have. In real estate this usually means pursuing zoning relief, gut renovations, ground-up development, etc... But in order to pursue these types of projects, you need to know what you are doing i.e. work for someone else first.
Also, if you plan on pursuing value add sub-10 unit brownstones, you will probably be better off having a construction background. Most people pursue the REPE/developer route thinking that they will raise a fund and pursue 500 unit development/acquisitions. But once you start playing in the sub-50 unit space, I would argue that construction knowledge becomes a lot more important. As an investor, if you walk into a rundown brownstone and you don't know which walls are bearing, whether or not the building needs to be brought up to code, how much space you actually need for living rooms/kitchen/bathrooms, you might find out the hard way why you were the highest bidder. Furthermore, this knowledge gives you an edge that other investors may not have. If you walk into a brownstone consisting of 2BR/1BA's and you know that you can re-partition the units into 3BR/2BA's without really sacrificing living/dining/kitchen, then you maximize the space and maximize your profit.
Coming from a European background where bureaucracy and regulations are already pretty bad, I probably downplayed how complex it is in NYC. Hearing how layered it is there really puts things in perspective. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily worse than over here, but it’s definitely different and clearly requires a lot of local knowledge and learning. I also don’t have a construction background, but I’d love to get some exposure to it. I can see now how much of an edge it gives you, especially when dealing with smaller-scale or value-add projects that are mostly old buildings too.
Would you suggest focusing on another simpler market first, or better to work in the field, build as much construction and operational experience as possible, and maybe look to venture out 5+ years down the line?
Really appreciate the advice. This thread has been super helpful in grounding my thinking and aligning my overall strategy with a more realistic lens.
Why do anything at all? Invest in something passive and use the ~6mm a year in income to have a good time.
Appreciate the comment. I actually think about that a lot. It’s definitely a valid point and something I’ve discussed with family as well.
That said, I don’t think it’s in my nature to just sit back and invest purely passively. I’ve always been close to real estate and investing in general, so it feels quite natural to stay active in that space. Not necessarily for the money, but because I genuinely enjoy the process (finding, structuring, underwriting deals etc.).
I completely see the logic of a more passive setup and maybe that becomes the direction later on. Even if I were to invest mostly passively, I’d still probably want to work in REPE or private credit just to stay sharp, keep learning, and be part of the industry.
That’s fair. I wanted the same thing when I was in my early 20s vs. working for a family business.
I would skip the masters and IB and find a small private firm that is similar to what you want to open for yourself. There is no use slaving away for either when the family money will open the same (if not more doors).
Thanks all for your honest replies!
NYC might be the single worst market to pursue.
What would I do if I were you?
I would buy NNN health care properties and generate a recurring cash flow base (with the minimum number of employees needed). The tenants take care of the properties.
Then, with some portion of the recurring cash flow, buy more value add and opportunistic properties. These will be on the smaller side for starters.
After some success there, I would do bigger value add and opportunistic investments.
I would keep 1 or 2 of my best assets with no debt, just in case I need rainy day liquidity. This will take time to build up.
I would then identify a niche RE sector in its early innings, do one or two investments, and then seek OPM to scale.
dang a lot of people here are being haters. Good for you, you got a nice lottery draw. If I were you I would learn and build affordable housing in markets where you can build cheap product in high AMI locations. That much capital is certainly enough to satisfy liquidity/net worth requirements on larger deals (ie, 200 unit) loans, and they are largely capitalized by tax credit equity and traditional debt sources. Your family could collect fees and even pay yourselves a return on gap financing put into the projects. After the tax investor is out of the deal, you can step into their equity position at a very large discount and own long term or recapitalize to grow
Really appreciate this take. Honestly one of the most helpful comments here. Yes I am in a very fortunate position. I am very well aware of this fact and try to play the fortunate hand I got as well as possible.
I hadn’t seriously considered affordable/LIHTC as a route, but the way you frame it makes a lot of sense, especially with how the capital stack works and the ability to step into the tax investor’s position later on. I love modelling, I will try to learn a lot about this and start modelling case deals soon.
How would you recommend someone start learning about this space? Any firms, books, or resources you think would give a good foundation?
Thanks again for the perspective. This is exactly the type of direction I was hoping to get from posting.
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