Development Manager Total Comp
With the job market being what it is today I wanted to get a thread going on what people are seeing for comps in the marketplace for Development Manager Positions. I know that there has been threads on this in the past, but I think the last six months have drastically shifted comp, so I'd like to hear what others are seeing.
Market: Pacific Northwest (Seattle)
Total Experience: 7 years (3 years Development, 4 years construction management)
Salary: $120K
Bonus: 15%
Carry: 1% ($150M annual equity placement target) ~$175K, 2-year full vesting, ~4 years from start date for the first terminal event.
Property Type(s): multi-family
Bumping - current development associate and curious what is next.
Adding your information as well - would be good to get wholistic comps since a "dev manager" at one shop might be a "dev associate" at another. I think years of experience really is the important piece vs. title.
Just over a year into development role. 100k base and that's it (plus standard benefits - PTO, health, 401k, etc etc.). 5 years investment sales experience , a little under 2 years in only-semi relevant analyst role before the brokerage role. Underpaid now, but feel like I have decent grounds for an increase - and am getting decent interview traction. hoping to get to at least 130k+ all-in, more is always better of course.
Northeast
mid level - 1 year leasing. 5 years of acquisitions, lending, DCM and asset management. 1 year of development management. 7 years total.
Total comp expecting $275K. All cash. $160k base.
product: office.
For additional reference, dev management team is myself and my boss. We manage the “business side” and we have a team on the construction side who are the project managers. Both work hand in hand but dev management oversees everything.
Market and private or REIT?
Private firm.
dang not too shabby, how did you find this role?
The role came up via my network.
Northeast, 3 years construction, MBA, 2 years development.
$160k base, 30% bonus.
I'm expecting a promotion within the next two years or so that will include carry.
Total Experience: 10 years (6 in development)
Salary: $120k
Bonus: $15k per job, so could be $45k, but because it's based off benchmarks it rarely happens all in the same year
Co-invest: Up to 4% of GP equity
Additional % of profits at sale on projects I run: 4%
% of profits at sale on projects I don't run: 1%
What market are you in?
Southeast
Congrats what do your checks look like for the 4% profit share?
Incredibly deal dependent. Could be $40k, could be $400k.
Total Years Experience: 13 (0 in REDev)
Title: Sr Development Manager
Product type: MF
Transitioned to Development a few months back.
Base: $185k w/ 20% fixed and up to $60k in incentivized milestone bonuses
All in roughly $280k
What was your prior 13 years experience in?
Architecture as a Senior Project Manager
What market are you in?
Texas (Austin, Houston, Dallas, SA)
Experience: 4 years out of UG + 1.5 years as an intern during college. All experience at development companies.
Market: Major West Coast
Title: Development Associate
Salary: $115,000
Bonus: 25%+ (expecting 35%)
Carry: none
Total Expected Comp: $145,000 to $155,000
Do you mind sharing your day to day role?
Role is development management and is pretty much cradle to grave: acquisition due diligence, entitlements, permitting, hiring and overseeing the design team, we have in house construction team that I work closely with, also involved in leasing and project closeout until stabilization. I work on 4-7 projects at a time and am critically involved in each project… it’s a lot of work.
Product Type?
Company does all product types. I am working on multifamily, creative office and medical office projects.
I would say this is in line with what most large, national developers pay at associate level.
SE Multi Developer with $450mm under construction on 6 person team
4 years out of UG; 3 years at Large Equity Group, 1 Year as Development Associate
Base: $110k
Bonus: 40%
$5k per deal we close that’s rolled into LP (closed on 5 deals in 1 year)
$10k per deal we sell
How many deals do you manage at one time? What’s the maximum you think you could actually manage? And do you only do dev management? Or do you also do acquisitions?
I mainly work on the acquisitions side. My main responsibilities include underwriting, LOI/PSA negotiation, debt/equity books for capital raising, draw schedules, investor updates, etc.
I’m trying to get more involved in entitlement/zoning and design process, but I don’t know if my firm wants to keep me as an acquisitions guy because I have an equity transactions background.
Is it pretty standard to start off UW and book related stuff and then move up to design and entitlement stuff after a few years experience at a developer?
Market: Southeast
Title: Development Manager
Total Experience: 10 years (8 years development, 2 years acquisitions prior)
Salary: $190K
Bonus: 20%
Carry: 2.5% of promote, promote calculation is a little wonky in a good way for me. Fully vested.
Property Type: Multifamily
All In: ~$230k excluding carry, which is only paid out at asset sale. I'm here for the long haul.
Could you lay out how your development career has evolved over time? I started in acquisitions as well (3 years at equity group), and now I’m a development associate, but I feel like my role is still acquisitions heavy focusing on UW, LOI/PSA’s, Equity/debt books, draw schedules, etc.
Did you start out like that as well and how did you transition over time?
So I say acquisitions for simplicity, but first role was kind of a hybrid acquisitions/research/deal monkey role. The company had an office and retail portfolio and I did the legwork that no one else was keen on like contacting tenants to request estoppels for refinancings, preparing equity OMs, contacting brokers and underwriting potential new acquisitions, etc. Pretty similar to what you described you're doing.
I knew I wanted to do ground up, so I started applying anywhere and everywhere and struck gold with a dev analyst role at a fairly well-known developer. I had the advantage of looking good on paper (I want to what the IB kids would call a "target" school and had a good GPA). I stayed in that role for a few years and got promoted internally once, but it was fairly consistently underwriting/OM/modeling-heavy. Once in a while I would use my Google Earth skills to lay out a site, and I interfaced a fair bit with our internal GC so knew what the project managers and estimators were up to.
I wound up jumping ship to take a dev associate role at what was more or less a startup, which was a disastrous waste of three years of my life with the sole exception that I now have many shining examples of what not to do as a developer (rule one, don't go buying things without at least some inkling what you want to do with them). So it turns out I jumped ship to the Titanic...
Fortunately I managed to turn things around and was offered my current job just as things were heading south. Now I do everything other than initial deal sourcing, from underwriting to contract negotiation to selecting the design team to permitting and entitlements.
So to answer your question more directly, I definitely started out in more underwriting-focused roles and learned the other skill sets necessary to be a dev manager along the way, and to some extent on the job in my current role. Hope that's helpful.
What is your carry penciling to right now?
That is the (almost) million dollar question. My best crystal ball estimate based on the four projects I have is in the $750k range. We're not a merchant builder and hold on to lots of assets after completion, so timeline to payout is a big question mark. I could leave to go live on the beach and still get paid eventually though, at least notionally.
Title: Development Manager
Total Experience: 5 years (4 as Dev Analyst at same firm) Development arm of International Asset Manager. My role is covering all West Coast markets.
Salary: $100k
Bonus: ~20%
Total comp- $120-$125K
Hours worked- 30-35 hrs per week, pretty good work-life balance, but know I'm underpaid compared to the market but sticking around due to immigration reasons
Total Experience: 8 years - 6 in Debt Brokerage, 1 in Acquisitions, 1 year in current development role
Salary: $120k, no set bonus
Long-Term Incentives: 25% of the promote (typically structured as pre-performance rather than post-performance, nets out to 5% ownership in each deal I work on), 33% split of leasing commissions on office/retail/warehouse, 5% of the developer fee
Total Comp over the last year: $120k (working through entitlements on 1,000's of multifamily units and about 2 million SF of commercial)
Annual Comp during the next 10-20 years: Hard to say, but should be a lot more than $120k
whoops, old thread
While my current comp wouldn't be of relevance due to my transitioning roles, really fascinating to see some of the responses here. The comp environment for development individuals (analyst/associate/manager/etc) has really changed in the past year and even more since the 5-6 years that I worked as a Dev ASO. Following the thread!
Would be helpful to know what yours was for perspective.
Does anyone have an idea of what Greystar pays for associate or director? This seems hard to track down despite being such a giant firm
Most Y0 associates outside of NYC/SF markets are at around 150 all-in ish. I think 115-125+30 is around par for most multi
Do you know if they hold pay standard across markets or if they adjust up for NYC / SF ?
Dev associates when I was there (circa 2018) were starting between $110-$125k base. Varied somewhat between cities - eg: NYC vs CHS.
Total Experience: 5 years (3 years large developer, 2 years small developer)
Market: UK
Salary: £80k base
Bonus: ~20% + 3% promote in my deals. Don't want to think about what that's worth right now.....
Total comp: £100k + promote
Hours worked: 45 - 50 hrs, 70 - 80 hrs a few times a year
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