Right now I'm a second year asset management analyst at a private real estate firm, but I've found the work becoming incredibly tedious as the job (all the way up the chain) is just JV partner reporting and emailing all of our other teams to gather information. I majored in quantitative subjects in school and miss that critical thinking/analysis type of work, plus I've been coding on the side for about two years.
Is there any path in RE that would use these types of skills or am I going to have to switch fields? I've been looking into some kind of CLO research or something but am having a hard time finding lists of firms to investigate and exactly what to look for, so any help would be appreciated!
In terms of heavy quantitative work, the one thing/firm that comes to mind is GreenStreet. I know their research teams rely heavily on statistics and big data type analytics to put together their market research reports, which many consider to be the gold standard.
That field specifically would be a good blend between real estate and quantitative type work, which I think is what you are looking for.
Honestly that is all just window dressing for capital.
Ha, that's fair enough. However, even still GreenStreet does good work, and IMO it would be a good fit per OP's job description.
That looks awesome, thank you! What exactly would those positions be called then? Just so I can look at the area more generally. I really enjoy real estate but didn't realize that it would be so qualitative and report-oriented once I actually got a job in it...
Even the folks with heavy stat/data science/ML backgrounds there are still called analysts, several of these folks are also CFA charterholders. There is one guy in particular there who was at CoStar for a while who has a similar background to you.
Sorry I think my question may have been a bit unclear. Is the type of position they're in called anything different, like maybe "research analyst" or "data science analyst" or something similar? Or would I be looking at a generic "analyst" position but just have to go to the specific firms where they do that kind of work?
The structuring side of CMBS/CRE CLO is quant heavy
That is probably the right answer while still being real estate adjacent.
That's pretty funny. My first job (on my second now) was a bit of that structuring but it also ended up being just a ton of reporting as well. I was actually thinking about looking into some kind of CLO trading or research, does that have a similar quantitative focus?
Research and strategy roles can be pretty quant intensive at times. Building econometric models, forecasts, mining data, and making quantitative as well as qualitative assessments of markets, properties, portfolios, investment strategies, etc.
That actually sounds like it would be exactly what I would be interested in. What kind of positions would I be targeting for that then? Just RE strategy analyst or RE portfolio analyst? I've been looking on LinkedIn for different types of those jobs but have been coming up short.
It’s going to be tough to locate jobs like that because they are relatively small amount of positions, and forms won’t usually call them different than other analyst jobs.
But most big firms will have an internal research team, usually less than 10 people on the team. But they will usually just have a job post that says analyst, and in the description it will say it is on a research team.
Try networking with some of the people listed here: https://www.ncreif.org/about-us/researchcommittee/
If they are willing to talk to you, they may know other research teams that are hiring.
You would be looking for jobs in the research/strategy division, fairly common at most large institutional investors, large developers, banks, lenders, and other large capital intensive firms including REITs. They are also very common at all types of debt shops that deal with CMBS, GSEs, I-banks, rating agencies, and the like. There are also similar roles within brokerages, consulting firms, and data providers (like CoStar, Green Street, etc.). Like all things in this world, titles can be all over the place... but look for items like,
Research analyst/associate (may be under 'strategy' but often called 'research' for marketing purposes)
Market analyst/researcher
Staff/junior/associate Economist (or anything that reports to the chief economist)
Consultant (clearly only relevant at a true econ consulting type firm, otherwise this means 'broker' too often)
Investment Strategist (sometimes, but this can be other things as wll)
Data Scientist (sort of obvious but if at a real estate firm, you can guess it means same deal)
It is worth noting that some shops (larger more likely), have dedicated research/strategy teams. Smaller shops may just have a few analysts/associates who essentially do the work in their overall portfolio. Others (of all size) do a lot of outsourcing of this work to consulting firms, but that still requires an 'in-house' liaison who should know something of this world.
Final note, you may see the term 'researcher' tied to brokerage and appraisal teams. These may not be anything like as described and just really junior 'non-sales' or 'non-production' roles where the path is to become a broker (or fee appraiser), this is no where near the same. Some are really just 'marketing' roles. Of course, all the large brokerage houses also have real research teams and even economic consulting units, so you can't dismiss them too quickly.
I know of a debt fund that was hiring a Monte Carlo Analysis analyst last year, maybe those opportunities exist elsewhere.
That's really interesting. I've used Monte Carlo with Matlab before and it was pretty cool so I'll definitely look out for any opportunities like that in debt. Do you know if the position was called "Monte Carlo Analyst" or was it a responsibility under another position like portfolio strategy or ops or something?
Yes, it was specifically titled "Monte Carlo Analyst". It was an office debt fund out of DC or Philly, forget the name. The job posting was interesting in that it appeared they were incorporating this type of analysis into their AM and underwriting forecasting.
Unrealestate meant to reply to your comment, sorry.
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