Anyone have good REPE firm perks?
Hey so I’m genuinely curious. For those in REPE and not just working for an owner operator/developer - does your firm have any good perks? When I look at my friends on the buyside in corporate private equity roles, they have pretty crazy perks. Cooks in house, cooks gifts, nice paid for events and hotels, etc etc.
I haven’t heard of any of this on the real estate side tho. Corporate PE offices seem quite exuberant when it comes to perks if you’re at a reasonable shop. Is this nonexistent in real estate PE?
My firm is small as far as REPE goes but we don't get anything. Travel is limited to coach and trying to keep hotels under $300 - $400 a night (i'm not traveling to HCOL markets, though). No other real perks at all. The best perk is really that since I'm a VP at a smaller firm, I basically run my own region for acquisitions and don't have a bunch of bureaucracy and people watching over my shoulder all day. If I need to go travel to a market for a few days I just do it, I don't need to ask permission. If I I need to leave early or get in late or go run an errand, again I just go do it. No ones asking questions or bothering me, although I do produce for the company so it's not like I'm slacking off.
I once worked for a larger firm that was doing really well and we got free dinner if we worked past 6pm, you could fly first class if you were a VP or higher, we would routinely stay at 5 star hotels and eat at some really nice restaurants when traveling getting bottles of wine, principals would take us to nice lunches and happy hours. However, the bureaucracy here was terrible. There were guys that had been with the company for 10 years that would still wait to leave for the night until all of the principals were gone even if it was past 6 - 7pm and they weren't that busy.
The dinners and parties sound sick and they were at first especially since I was an analyst that couldn't afford much on my own and was still wide eyed, but after a couple years it honestly got old. Half the time I wished I could just go home and make my own food or go to the gym instead of being stuck at another happy hour eating sushi and drinking expensive wine. 5 star hotels were also nice but honestly I'm traveling for work and all I really care about is having a clean room with no non-sense. I don't need to be staying at the St. Regis and I'm happier working for a smaller company now with less perks but more freedom and enjoying my job more. The one perk I miss the hell out of is definitely the first class flights. Luckily I never fly more than 3 hours now and can at least fly Delta Comfort and get upgraded from time to time from my status. And the free dinners working past 6pm were nice, but now at my smaller firm I basically head home at 4pm most days and log back in from home which I'll take any day of the week over a free dinner and sitting in my work clothes at the office until 7pm.
In terms of events - most places will have a team party or two per year. Again depends on your company. I've had some crazy holiday parties at my larger firms after having good years and also had some that were basically just a team dinner at a decent restaurant at smaller places. Brokers will often take you out to stuff once you're higher up if you're actually doing a lot of business with them.
Hi, thanks a lot for your insights! That is appreciated. I'm very interested in learning more about your experience and the transition. Would you mind PM me? I could not make it as it's an anonymous post.
I’m at a big shop (250B aum plus) and we have our kitchen with free lunches and whatever food you want. I don’t really care about it that much to be honest. Would’ve probably loved it more when I was younger but now I just don’t care. They’re all just jobs…
The only real perks are time and money. Everything else is fluff.
We get free lunch but it comes with the expectation that you eat at your desk. If you’re getting free dinner, it’s because you’re working late. Gym in your office building - that’s also a perk that helps keep you working in the office. You’re seeing the theme here right?
Agreed. The only perk I want is free lunch. Definitely don’t want to eat takeout in the office for dinner and the office gyms are ass (especially when you have a membership to a real gym)
My very large firm has pretty legendary internal events.
Everyone director level and above went to a retreat in Iceland a few years ago.
I also lived in a multifamily property my company built and got a discount on rent.
Best “perk” I ever got though was a great paternity leave program. Got 3 months paid time off when we had a kid.
Sounds like a dream. Congrats man. How long have you been with this firm? What state/region are you in?
10 years, and I have worked in Southern California, Texas, and New York.
What are the annual or semi annual events your company does? Not sure I’d want to travel to Iceland with colleagues lol
That was just one time. Usually there is a conference every other year for senior level employees that rotates between us cities. The there is a conference the other years for junior level employees. There are also regular conferences for new employees.
you are saying you wouldn’t take a free trip to Iceland with your coworkers?
My firm is small (2.5 BM aum) but we have some pretty decent perks:
Paid breakfast & lunch every day (and dinner when working late)
Mondays WFH
Free Physical Therapy in the office gym
Unlimited Celsius, ice cream, and beer
Bro where do u work. I’m want to apply lmao
If you did the math on how much all of that stuff would cost you if you just paid for it yourself, you'd realize your much better off just making more money.
Let's say it saves you $25 a day on breakfast + lunch (4 days a week because Monday WFH) + $100 a week in physical therapy = $200 a week = $10k a year
Nice to have for sure, but you're much better off chasing the higher paying company vs. perks like this. Awesome if you can get them both in one.
Having access to unlimited free Celsius and ice cream all day would also derail my health, so I'd almost prefer not to have that perk haha
Former firm. Every day WFH and unlimited vacation. Nobody tracked it. Funny enough it was never abused. In fact, people worked even harder. I got to travel internationally, took my laptop with me and still worked.
Unlimited PTO is fools gold lol. employers who offer it look great and employees almost never abuse it. win-win
More importantly you don’t have to pay out the accrued vacation days when someone leaves.
We don't officially have this, but I'm in a position with my firm where I can basically WFH whenever I want and we don't count vacation days and I've never been told no. The problem is I just don't have enough time in the year to really utilize it that often without putting my work on other team members or losing progress on sourcing deals. I usually take 3 - 4 weeks of vacation a year but almost all of it has to fall over the major holidays when I know our industry is typically slowing down anyways. Our hours aren't terrible (call it 40 - 50 on average), so not even a sweat shop but there's rarely a week without some sort of deadline happening or calls I need to make that are tough if I'm trying to vacation internationally.
Yup. Its definitely a bit scummy in some sense, but you really have to force yourself to use it. Or at the very least work remote from elsewhere.
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