Bumping this topic to the RE Finance forum - didn't get any comments from the consultants.
Hello everyone,
A lot of consulting firms have service offerings around corporate real estate (workplace strategies, RE portfolio optimization, vendor selection and implementation of RE software, site selection, etc.) and I was hoping to turn to WSO for some intelligence since this topic hasn't seen much attention.
Any with personal experience in this field? Are exits to RE PE firms, developers, or brokerage firms common? How do MBA admissions look upon this experience? What firms are the biggest players in this field?
Thanks in advance, always appreciate the WSO insight.
If you're at a big firm (CBRE/JLL/Cushman/etc) you would probably have ehhh-ok exit ops because you basically would have no transferrable skills. Business schools would probably like it (if it is well known firm) because it's probably not a job they hear of very often. I would imagine the main exit would be to the client, which IMO is not very sexy since your client would be users/tenants not investors. In short the career prestige and pay would fall below most other real estate career paths.
Note that real estate is pretty fluffy with its language. For example mortgage bankers or investment sale brokers are sometimes called "real estate investment bankers" and appraisers are sometimes called "consultants". If you are pretty set on "real estate consulting" you could look at the big 4 accounting firms they all have "real estate consulting" arms but just know that you would basically just be an appraiser and not transacting.
Personally I would chose development, acquisitions, Asset Management, brokerage (debt or investment sales), lending, special servicer/workout all before I would look at taking the job you are talking about. And even if all that failed and I applied to every job in those fields in the U.S. + U.S. territories for at least 2 years with full government-tit-sucking-unemployment and never sleeping, then I probably would want try to be a tenant rep still before that job because at least you can make money.
The good news is that your friends/chicks(or dicks) that don't work in real estate will think you have a have a cool "consulting" job. Just FYI people that work in real estate don't whack off 24/7 to consulting like most MBA students do. Sorry for the rant but you should consider what I am saying.
What types of consulting firms are you looking at? If its a real consulting firm, like say, Deloitte, McKinsey, FTI, your ops would be pretty good, and dependent on what your group focuses on (Asset Management, transaction advisory, etc). This would also be the basis on whether or not you are going to be doing "real" RE analysis/modeling. Different places do different things, and a lot of roles are titled "consultants." On WSO, half the people who want to be "consultants" at a big 4 firm dont understand or know what real financial or strategy consulting/advisory is..... anyway, to answer your question, it depends.
Also, JLL/CBRE, etc have 'consulting' groups that focus on different areas, some of them do real management consulting work within specific spaces of RE (planning, government project advisory, etc) and it is a lucrative business for them because they hire out of consulting companies, but have the granular expert RE knowledge and internal infrastructure.
For example, JLL's consulting practice manages a portfolio of over 50,000 multi fam units because the owners are not in the RE business. Alix Partners restructures distressed portfolios for huge names in the RE industry, which involves modeling, analysis, and sometimes asset management... what ever their client needs.
Thank you both for the well written responses. To add some context to the discussion, I am at a tier 2 consulting shop as an analyst in their general pool. I have been networking with the folks in the RE group who do the type of work that I mentioned above. Very smart / interesting people and I enjoy working with them, but want to know the longer term implications of aligning with their group.
My medium term goal is to go to a top RE MBA program (Wharton, Haas, Columbia), long term to start my own REIT or REPE fund. I have a background in residential RE, finance, and startups, but chose consulting as a first job for the standard optionality, breadth of experiences, etc. list of reasons.
I am trying to piece together the likelihood of an exit from a 2 year management consulting stint to a top developer / REIT / REPE fund and how to make my story for business school the most compelling. There is always the option of joining an RE related startup (Airbnb, RE crowdfunding, etc.) prior to business school and then aligning to RE finance after a top MBA as well.
Would love to hear thoughts on the above. Because I am not currently in the RE industry, there inevitably are some gaps in my knowledge on the subject.
Deal experience, under writing, valuation, modeling, sitting in on client meetings where you hear about their investment objectives/problems/etc is what will help get you in front of people at a good REPE group. I don't see any value in experience at places like air bnb, etc.
An investment group will only care about you knowing how their investment strategy works, and that you understand the industry fundamentals. I think if you're at a "middle tier" consulting shop (is it big 4 accounting?) there will be people working on transaction advisory, structuring, etc , and you should try and get some experience with them if you can. That experience may allow you to swing into a junior role with an investment shop in a year or two, so long as you demonstrate you learned and understand their business and objectives. Regardless , transaction exp at a good consulting firm will set you up nicely for b school, after which would prob set you up to network into an investment group.
Does that help? I think that's what you were asking
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