Aug of 2024 state of CRE Job Market
How is everyone finding the CRE job market currently? What percentage of new graduates are unemployed?
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Feels weird out there, from the perspective of someone not actively looking for a job. Deals are getting done, but a lot of people are also sitting on their hands hoping for someone to show them the way. Real estate companies are essentially lemmings.
It’s hard if your pipeline is dry to hire. Ideally you staff up right before the turnaround, but if you pull the trigger too early you’ll have a bunch of analysts sitting on their hands with nothing to do. Problem is, all of these firms hired for the environment of the past 15 years and now that times have changed, it’s definitely going to be a bit of ring around the rosie.
People are going to have to take roles that they otherwise would not prefer in the interim.
Great thread idea though. Interested to see what people are seeing.
So you’re stating most firms are overstaffed?
For current activity levels, yes. A pessimist would say they’re staffed based on the previous decade and a half run and shouldn’t be paying that many salaries. An optimist would say they’re trying to ride it out in anticipation of future good times because downsizing and then having to hire again is more disruptive than trying to maintain the course.
This is accurate. Might have to take roles that are not my top choice in terms of location. Team went through bad layoffs because of market conditions in the past 2 years. Deal flow picked up in past month or so, but nowhere near enough to justify hiring more juniors
Feels worse than 2023 - lot of firms have frozen pipelines, or end up not hiring anyone at all when a role gets posted.
Some of my former colleagues are having such a difficult time that they're pivoting to MBAs to ride out the storm. Like CRE is saying markets only have a handful of worthwhile deals to commit, yet there are so many acquisition teams competing to close out those deals. On the other hand, due to the current distressed market, there still seems to be demand on the asset management side. However, even for those roles, competition is fierce and people are accepting pay cuts from their previous positions. Hope this helps
It's pretty rough out there. Mid level here ~8yrs of dev/ acq experience. Laid off a couple months ago. Have only gotten interviews through my network thus far and I'm mostly overqualified & looking at ~25-50% pay cuts. God speed
It’s a rough spot to be in. Doesn’t matter how many times you tell them “I don’t care about titles, I just want an opportunity to work” they don’t believe you. Keep your head up, brother.
Yessir, that sums it up nicely. Thanks brotha - times like these are inevitable. Just depends how you navigate em
In a pretty similar spot myself. 7 years. Director level (between Dev Mgr and VP at previous firm and most of the firms I’ve interacted with recently). Getting a few interviews for VP level roles (2nd and 3rd round in some cases) but end up getting turned down in favor of older, more experienced candidates (10-15+ years). On the flip side, definitely a pay cut to go back to Dev Mgr roles, so I’m being careful with answering salary expectation questions to not price myself out of a DM role, which I would definitely take at this point. It’s definitely tough being in this experience range…being too qualified or not qualified enough. Weird bracket to be in. Keeping an open mind, applying to everything I can and networking as much as possible. Good luck.
Good luck. I was in similar situation with same level of experience about a year ago. I ended up having to take a job at state financing authority. Only got this role because of my experience in LIHTC. I ended up taking a 30% pay just to continue to work. I thought I would have found something by now but no. In the past year I've had only 3 meaningful interview. Just keep pushing! It's rough out here.
I have been looking around and interviewing a little bit, but I feel like very few of the big names are hiring. Probably waiting for the election/rate cuts, and if they feel like they will have room to run, they'll go on a hiring spree.
Now more than ever you need a warm intro to get an interview. Job postings in my market are getting 100+ applicants within a few days and then being taken down due to volume of applicants. Have not heard of anyone having luck with recruiters.
Recruiters have not been helpful for me in this current environment either. My network has been 100x more helpful than recruiters. Also seeing posted roles get 100+ applications within days. Extremely competitive. Get coffee with as many people as possible!
I have also found recruiters lately not being helpful - often getting no response despite being a competitive applicant (imo)
I think this forum skews towards operators/developers type firms. Obviously if you work at one of those firms, times are tough. Capital provider side seems to be a little more positive, but mainly on the debt side.
Work at a capital provider and I’ve closed two deals this year - one debt and one opportunistic equity
Debt funds seem to be as active as ever. Took an interview with a mega fund looking to bring on a senior associate and the recruiter reached out to me directly. Not going to leave my current fund but interesting nonetheless
I think some of you guys struggling should look into debt jobs if you’re junior enough to make the switch
Anecdotally- I’m in a Boston/Chicago type of market at the moment. I was laid off a few months ago, along with dozen other at my firm. A few went to grad school to get MBA’s. Many development folks I talk to here are on hiring freezes, one in particular (major national MF developer) has at least one more cut, many are simply carrying their teams as long as they can hoping we are at the bottom and positioning themselves to be market leaders coming out of the downturn. A few folks I talked to at the end of last year were planning to add to their team but pipeline hasn’t proven to justify any additions. Definitely a huge slowdown in people moving around. I even know a few folks who turned down opportunities to make more money with firms doing exciting projects because they saw it as more risky and knew they would be safer to stay put in their current firm, even though they admittedly aren’t growing or getting paid what they want. Again…all personal experience and conversations with folks in my market so take with a grain of salt. Not to say there are zero opportunities out there because there are. Just extremely competitive. Talk to as many people as you possibly can.
Applying for FT positions post-grad at the moment.
I haven't had the worst experience so far. Lot of folks in my network have explicitly said they're waiting for clarity in the Spring to add headcount as well.
Regardless, I've been relatively open to everything in regards to applying and have gotten a decent amount of interviews.
How long have you been searching?
To clarify, I'm graduating in May so I just started. Probably started sending apps out on Aug 1st.
Waiting til spring isn't unusual for real estate, and here you'll have the upshot of a few rate cuts and hopefully a bit of a thawed market.
For the mid/senior level operator/developer side, i just had coffee with a friend that is a recruiter, and yep another confirmation it is a pretty dead market. They said they don't expect to see companies hiring until December at the earliest. There are limited spots opening up at the senior level only based on current folks retiring.
There are limited asset manager roles that pop up, and companies doing institutional work such as partnering with universities or PPP are doing deals and hiring.
As a lender, consistently working 11-12hr days. Firm is not actively hiring to backfill positions they cut down 12-24mo ago. Seeing a lot of loans closing and getting done compared to about 6mo-mo ago, roughly 3-5x.
What type of lender are you at and how much do you make? Having a similar experience at a debt fund making $275k and I don’t feel like it’s enough to justify the hours (sr associate)
Making significantly less than that but before deal tips. We’re a mortgage brokerage with the Agency license (Northmarq/CBRE/JLL/etc)
Are you in NYC?
Separately for the Associate making $275K, even if that’s all in comp, isn’t that an amazing deal? 12 hours five days a week is 60 hours. How many years of experience do you have and are you in NYC?
Asking “Socal Son” if they live in NYC is a bit like me asking you if you live or work on Bleecker Street, given your name
West Coast and ~3yrs experience
Idk what your social life is like but I love being able to work out, go on a date, see my friends, go to run club, play tennis, etc. after work. If you work 8-8 every weekday, you simply don’t have time for much social interaction. When it’s busy, work bleeds into the weekend and you can kiss your Sunday goodbye too. There’s more to life than making what is ultimately a meager salary compared to actual wealthy peoplE
Something seems to have shifted in the last two to three months. I am not actively looking, but I have been hit up by recruiters with one or two solid opportunities per month since June. For the two years prior to that, it was complete crickets. Like not a single recruiter inbound in two years, literally.
Hopefully the trend continues.
In recent recruiter conversations, they're pretty much like 'yeah the market is dead.' And with anything that does pop up, there's so much talent on the sidelines (and frankly getting desperate), the odds are not great.
Based on conversations I've had with employed folks who are considering looking, bearing down in present positions (even less than ideal ones) seems to make the most sense. You might assume grass-is-greener at employer #2 but they will be dealing with same industry headwinds. Maybe it's a new firm with differentiated special-sauce - but in that case you're necessarily talking about a firm with ramp-up risk and growing pains - which may be worse than the current zombie firm you're at.
Tough choices all around.
Bumping this. How's everyone making out? Going on 6 months and haven't heard anything but crickets since October. Starting to look at leaving my city...
I have 6 YOE and was let go by a REPE firm in August (smaller fundraise and firm shut down local ops). Seeing lots of job postings out there but overwhelmingly for analyst/junior associates. I've had a decent amount of looks for associate-level roles - mostly in asset management - but none interesting enough for me to pursue seriously.
Question: I'm expecting an offer for an AM role with a reputable operator in my market. Firm has been fairly active on the transaction front recently. Would I be crazy for passing and holding out for a potentially more lucrative role in acquisitions in 3-6 months?
I have been enjoying the free time so I haven't fully put myself out to the market, and the recruiters I've been speaking to are launching searches for more interesting roles in Q1.
Some considerations I'm thinking through: I'd be taking a ~10-15% pay cut from 2023 comp, vibes were slightly off, but I have strong preference to not relocate right now. I'd feel bad if I took the role then jump for a better role in 6-12 months but I don't want to be out of the market for too long.
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