CRE Debt Originations vs small MF investing platform
Hi everyone,
I come from CRE balance sheet lending background (1.5 years). I have these opportunities potentially. TBH I am not entirely sure what career path I want, if I want debt or equity but I think both are great roles. Curious your thoughts on what you would pick:
- Role 1: CRE analyst - Agency Debt originations / mortgage banking at large platform, think Northmarq / Newmark / Berkadia / JLL. Comp 85-95k base salary. Not sure on bonus, but being working close to originators should be pretty high no? 30% bonus?
- Role 2: Investment analyst role - 6 person team managing 8-10 MF properties. Investment underwriting on new acquisitions and asset management / portfolio management. Base salary: 80k, not sure on bonus - seems very dependable on company performance being small team. Bonus could be very bad if no acquisitions.
Any advice / your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you.
Do you enjoy the client facing work? The investment analyst role is going to have different pacing with sitting assets and being less external focused. No longer providing a service - you work for yourselves. Also make sure you're comfortable with the job leaning more asset management. If it's a slow market, you might be underwriting deals here and there but most of those models are going to sit on the shelf until the market moves your way.
Coming from a similar sized team - be prepared to wear a lot of hats. Great environment to learn but you won't always be learning stuff that will translate to the next job.
I do like the relationships business, but those are good points - will keep that in mind. I won’t enjoy asset management as much as underwriting new deals of course. I feel I would have more reps in the debt role
If you are not entirely sold on either debt or equity as a career (and you don't need to be yet), then personally I would recommend whatever role will expose you to real deal reps, which sounds like the mortgage banking position.
Like the above poster mentioned, any hybrid acq/AM/PM job these days will certainly lean towards AM/PM. Which is a great skillset to acquire, but like I said before, deal reps matter more at a young age.
I used to do originations at a similar firm like the ones you mentioned and it was a blast. Granted it was during the lower interest rate days, but still, that experience set me up for my career. I look back at my time on the team very fondly and pull knowledge from that role constantly. Plus, you get exposed to a lot - interfacing with sponsors, lenders, underwriters, and third party vendors. Also getting to see the deal lifecycle from initial analysis/sizing through closing is a huge bonus compared to teams who strictly screen/size upfront or only underwrite post term sheet issuance.
Edit: regarding bonus, it depends on a lot of team factors, but in my experience, a good to great year resulted in 70-80% bonus. A decent year would be around 50-60%, but that is because my boss looked out for his analysts, even when the bankers did not do well that year.
Thank you for this, greatly appreciated. I agree and I am leaning towards the debt role. That is some nice bonuses! Im sure it would not be the same as that of course, but I am guessing the bonus would be a lot better in the debt role than the investment role
I can't speak to what type of bonuses you may see for the investment role. But anecdotally speaking, at the analyst level, my all in comp was always higher than my friends and peers on the buyside.
How many hours did you average a week? And if you don’t mind mentioning - at what company were you at?
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