Cold Calling in Acquisitions at a Developer
Hey guys I wanted to see what people's experience was breaking into development. I've heard a lot of people say they wanted more junior people (1-3 years) to cold call for deals. Thoughts on this? Is this the norm or should it be more of a development analyst role or PM role where you're getting on the job experience? Also what about pay? Has anyone done a trial period for free to get in? Seems ridiculous to me, but had an offer from a lean developer. Seems in general they're trying to take advantage and dangle the carrot of learning from a lean team, but I cannot see how it's worth it with legit 0 pay and a trail period. Also, have heard from other interviews that a lot of developers seem to want cold calling from junior members which I had not heard before. Any advice is appreciated.
I know a few shops that run like that. Run very lean and try to do everything they can in-house. Ultimately, if you are going after a really specific location/property type that may be too niche or small for the land brokers to dig up, then it can ultimately be the best choice for a company to pursue. They can sometimes get lucky and find some gems/good deals, but they will also not see the 100s of other off-market deals that the local land brokers are digging up as they will be directly competing with them. You will have to sweet talk or pull the wool over the eyes of landowners to give you the discount vs the other land brokers in their ear telling them to take it to market to get the highest price. Also, the land brokers have ample and streamlined resources at their disposal and spend their whole days prospecting for land sites so your operation is generally less efficient than theirs.
It's like any form of specialized services that can also be done by yourself (capital raising, property mgt, accounting, etc). You need to evaluate your strategy and whether or not your time is more valuably spent elsewhere. Lean shops employ this strategy often, so seems likely that this shop would employ this strategy.