Best city in Canada for CRE ops?

Hey everyone,

I've been trying to break into the CRE industry for the last year. not too sure if i'm in the wrong city for ops or if Canada just isn't the place for CRE but according to a quick search on indeed, It looks like the ops are in these cities as follows: Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton/Calgary (i'm in one of the three btw). I will agree that i've seen quite a bit of roles open up in CRE over the last year during my search however a lot of these roles have been within a sales or legal capacity.

I've been networking with real estate individuals as well and none of them seem to know the REFM/Linneman book. What is recognized in Canada though is AACI from UBC, MSRE, and the CFA. I'm just wondering for those who are in Canada, how didi you break into the industry...did you have OCR for some real estate internships? did your school have a focus on real estate?

a bit of background info: attended a non-target school in one of the three cities mentioned. had an internship with the provincial gov doing database/billing related work/was involved in my school's investment club and now working as a teller in one of the big 4 banks approaching my 4th year...

TL;DR been looking into CRE roles over the last year, industry does not recognize REFM/Linneman self study, for those in Canada, how did you break in? I'm 3.5 years into my current role and am thinking of resigning in my current non analyst role and exploring new opportunities due to lack of growth

3 Comments
 

I'm still a student, here's what I'm currently doing:

2 real estate case comps (NAIOP battle for alberta and the ARGUS University challenge) I also got an internship this previous summer at a small market research /advisory group.

So my resume has a lot of RE related stuff. I've been applying to simmer internships in Toronto and Calgary (don't want to stay in Edmonton). The big banks usually have a real estate internship available. As well as AIMCO, and other lifecos.

Time and time again people on this forum have told me networking is the best thing you can do. Hit up a few people for a coffee and try to learn more about them and their jobs, hopefully one will lead to a job

 

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