Anyone have any good famous broker stories?
or just details on what these guys are like to interact with?
I’m talking closing dinners with Doug Harmon, a night out with Adam Spies, cocktail party with Roy March, boat trip with Kevin Shannon, etc. you get it.
Would love to hear what these guys are like away from the office.
Dustin Stolly refused to shake anyone's hand at a pitch instead giving out fist bumps......... yes this was before COVID.
Can someone give me some insight on the different Broker career paths? salary, options, leaders, etc.
Apparently banging out Darla Longo's gay clients and killing yourself is always an option for broker career paths.
Hi,
I wanted to take the time to share my experiences, ~ May be a fun read
Part A:
I started university at age 18 studying biology, took me 2.5 years to realize I hate this and instead enjoyed business. My father encouraged me to get my realtor licence as a way to make a few bucks selling homes while I was in university. After I took the commercial realtor course I quickly enjoyed the content and knew that I'd rather sell income producing assets rather than homes. While I studied for my realtor license, I was also studying to transfer into a top 8 business school in Canada so that I can have a better shot at private equity/investment banking out of undergrad.
Took me around 4 months of speaking with many CRE brokers as I was trying to land a position at a top 4-6 brokerage while I was in school. Not surprised that everyone of them said to come back once I graduated. At this time I 1,000% believed that I needed to be at a prestigious brokerage in order to do well and ignored the unknown brokers, until I met a broker who didn't care about brand and ran a one-man brokerage house out of his home (little did I know ~ He was well connected).
I worked as broker for my first 1-2 years while in university and spent another 2-3 years after graduation as a broker.
Part B ~
I started as a CRE broker with 2 industry veterans with AMAZING connections, this is the biggest edge you can have in an advisory industry.
To give you an idea ~ My partners were well connected to guys who can buy up $4B worth of properties in a single year.
This was one of the luckiest opportunities I got so I had to take it over a gig at CBRE.
We 3 formed a team at a no-name brokerage and started finding good properties to sell across Canada, US, & the UK via soliciting real estate funds, it took me 9.5 months of soliciting, have deals fall apart and making embarrassing mistakes to finally close $250m at 2% commissions in my first year (I walked away with $1.25M). This was a huge moment for me and at this point I realized that I don't need to get a gig at a Investment bank or a Private Equity firm after graduation.
2nd year in the business ~
I wanted to create a business and become an operator and so I did what many do... form a boutique brokerage house.
Long story short, I formed a brokerage house of only 6 brokers (including me) and hired 6 ex-REIT guys.
In 4.5 years since starting the brokerage, our team sold approx. ~ $2.6B in total sales and maintained a profit margin of over 79%
Some metrics about our firm
Annual revenue ~ $15M
Annual profit ~ $12M
Annual personal income ~ $4.8M
Sold for $144M w/ 40% ownership
Walked away with $78m after leaving the business
We sold Multifamily, Industrial, Office, & Retail assets
My partners and I ran the firm for a few years until we decided that we wanted to leave and do other things. So, we started soliciting PE funds for a acquisition, our operations had been running well from the beginning and so it wasn't too difficult to sell the business at a 12X EBITDA multiple.
Part C ~ Where I am now ~ Age 28+
Now, I'm currently take a break since I sold my firm a month prior. Currently at home with my extended family and wife.
I plan on buying value-add properties and companies as Joint partner with PE funds with $500M - $1.5B in total AUM.
--------
I too had many ups & downs during this job and would like to openly talk about some.
My biggest loss:
My team and I got an opportunity to represent a foreign fund to sell their $1.75B multifamily portfolio of 14,000 multifamily units in the US.
It was a difficult ask and we couldn't transact, although we did get a fund to put in an offer.
- We lost out on a huge deal which still stings to this day.
My biggest win:
My team was able to convince a MD at Brookfield Asset Management on how we would to bring offers on their portfolio of asses.
Brookfield decided to allow us to sell a portfolio of $600m worth of diversified assets across the US. This deal took us only 2 months to transact on as we had buyers ready to deploy the capital asap.
Lessons learned,
Opportunity knocks on your door only a few times in your life and at VERY unexpected times and so you need to be ready to open the door.
Opportunities can come to you while you're in school or when you're in your 40s, BUT don't say no without listening!
Thank you for reading,
Have a great day
My buddy always tells me a story about some divorced cougar that works for JLL down in Miami who just relentlessly tries to fuck Associates/VPs half her age. He's shown me her emails and they are ridiculously sexual. "I hear you boys are looking to get lucky in South Florida next week (;" type of shit, with nobody else CC'd. It's actually the funniest story ever and her LinkedIn picture is exactly what you would expect. Full body shot with mad legs and cleavage hanging out.
No, I'm not giving any of you freaks her name/contact info haha.
If it is her, not bad, not bad.
”Applys to JLL Miami roles”