Debt/equity brokerage
Looking to hear from those that decided to going into debt/equity brokerage: why did you choose it? What do you like about your job? What do you wish you would have known or could change?
Read through a bunch of the threads on here about IS vs D/E , lets not make this a pissing match about which side gets more granular in their underwriting or who has better exit opps, just generally curious into why people choose D/E brokerage.
Would be cool to hear from an actual D/E broker on here. Feel like we only hear from IS professionals
Breadth and depth of exposure. You can be completely agnostic to product type, geography (a handful of US-based groups advise on deals across US borders), and execution outcomes (capital placement, loan sales, workouts during a downturn, etc.).
You learn how to drop into any market, underwrite an asset, quickly synthesize everything you need to know about the market, and most importantly convince capital to write a check.
Investment sales is largely a local/regional focus with most brokers focusing on a single product type (i.e. Mountain-West Retail team, South Florida Multifamily team, Southeast Industrial team).
If you are working at a JLL/CBRE/Newmark/Eastdil, in say somewhere like Dallas, in D/E are you not going to be regionally focused and mostly sticking to Texas?
Most likely. Maybe you follow your clients to other markets, but not sure if you'd have to collaborate with for example, the JLL LA team.
Currently in D/E brokerage. Echo everything [Merchant_of_Debt] said. Would add that I was actually gunning for a spot on a top IS team in my market but stumbled upon a spot at a top boutique D/E shop in my market and took it since the IS role didn't pan out. After about my 6 month mark, realized it was an amazing decision. I was learning so much looking at the entire capital stack of every major asset class, and realized that in D/E you can chase relationships with every kind of sponsor as we don't just target groups that enter and exit deals quickly, like an IS broker might prefer. We can assist long term holders, assist in the capital stack for development, etc, etc. Real estate people often overuse the expression "every day is different" but it truly is in the D/E space.
I do wish I would have known that D/E was such a commoditized business. What I mean by that is, any D/E broker from across the country can work on any deal. It's not like that in IS, obviously due to licensing requirements. What often happens is the best developers in your market sometimes link up with a D/E shop based out of NYC, LA, Chicago, etc to do deals in your market. The rainmakers are able to do a lot of deals in their backyard, but are also able to link up with a group that buys a lot of deals across the country, and does all of their acquisition financing for them.
The good very much outweighs the bad. Great place to cut your teeth and learn a lot. Just make sure the team you join up with has consistent deal flow.
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