I have lurked for about a year but never posted so bear with me.
My background: I recently graduated UG with a great GPA from a pretty good state school. I interned for ~8 months at a very reputable niche development group.
Ideally, I would love a role in acquisitions at an owner/operator or for a larger fund. Although my dream is to work for a place like Hines/Tishman in ~5-10 years, I have heard it is easier to go from finance (acq at a large REIT or REIB) to development than the other way around. My understanding of working for a developer is that the work is a fair bit of underwriting, but mostly project management type stuff. I would prefer to do more underwriting/modeling than project management this early in my career.
The only offer I’ve gotten so far this summer is for a MF development shop. Certainly they aren’t a huge name but they are no mom and pop job; I believe ~2B AUM. I am reluctant to accept because I really want to learn Argus and I’m also not sure how easy it would be to go from a development analyst position to an acquisitions role in a larger operator or REPE.
So I guess my question is precisely that. What might my job prospects look like in a couple years? Could I do MF dev for a year or two and then get an analyst gig in REIB? Would I be better off continuing with the job hunt and try to lock down a job at a big four CRE group/IS brokerage or the capital markets team at a large brokerage and then trying to lateral into REIB or an acquisitions role?
Any insight is appreciated. Thanks
I can't answer all of your questions, but in terms of capital markets and development I was in a very similar position. I just graduated from college this last spring, and had previously interned at a growing development shop that has properties all along the east coast. I was fascinated with everything I worked on and wanted to pursue development after graduating. Applied to a ton of places, and rarely heard back/was told I needed more RE experience before I would be a competitive candidate. Then pivoted to looking at more RE finance career opportunities, and ultimately accepted a position in Cap Markets. From the people I have talked to (On WSO, and in person) and what I have read, exits ops from Cap Markets are good, and are in line with what you're talking about. Just know Argus isn't really a platform that's used. I'll likely have to pay for training out of pocket over the next couple years.
That being said, I think the best way forward would be to define what you want to learn, or what skills would be most beneficial to help make you a better candidate for your dream job. I looked into Cap Markets because its a great platform to refine your modeling abilities, has a lot of exposure to different deals, and would put me in a position to both understand the markets, and be able to confidently model cash flows for properties. From what I can understand, development shops rarely have a one size fits all approach to what you'll be doing. You could be assisting a developer with project management, modeling, and a whole other number of things, such as site acquisitions.
Also, everyone I have talked to in development started in other areas in the industry (PM, construction, finance, etc). If UW is what you want to learn, I would shift your focus away from Development for the time being, and look into roles with a lot of deal flow (cap markets or Lending UW).
If you're modeling, esp for cap markets team, you better believe you'll be using Argus
Just from my experience, and from what others across different teams are preaching, Argus isn't useful anymore. Everything we do, and everything we get from different origination teams is currently run with excel (have seen some models built with Valuation IQ, a RedIQ product). Have you seen the opposite? And if so, in what ways?
Not fully answering your question because I don’t know the answer. But I wanted to mention that learning Argus isn’t that difficult. Becoming an expert is another story, but knowing it well enough to intelligently talk about it can be done yourself.
I started at a smaller development shop and have been able to land interviews with several of the types of company you're aspiring to land at (Related, Tishman & Brookfield) with no networking. IMO you should just go where you'll get the best deal experience (combination of volume, depth, asset diversity, development+traditional acquisitions, etc.) and where you can demonstrate that you're truly passionate about real estate. Having Argus on the resy definitely helps but as the poster above mentioned it's a pretty simple program to learn.
Yeah op, echoing above, if you want to work in development and have an offer working in development do that. Don’t wait for a cap markets job just so you can use that to lateral into development in the future. You’re skipping a step a lot of people are forced to do.
For what it’s worth, the firm let me know I would be involved with the capital raising process and I would play a role in their sales (~5 this next year). Not sure if that’s every development gig too though.
It’s the part of the job that’s close to the money that fascinates me (I think). Not so much the orchestrating with architects/city/engineers etc.
With adequate networking, do you think it would be feasible to end up an a large REIT in dev/acq on multiple property types (I really want to work with office/retail) in a couple years?
Edit: also, I have heard at these larger dev shops at an analyst/associate level, the work is a lot heavier on the finance than the PM part of dev. Do you know to what degree this may be true?
Raising capital / investor relations is a different side of the business until pretty senior levels and won't do that much for you when it comes to landing acquisitions & development roles.
Yes you would be able to move to a REIT if you wanted to.
This is true at pretty much any development shop - Analysts/Associates/VPs etc. are really finance guys. You quarterback the development process but you generally have a few construction/project management types who do all the heavy lifting in design/construction.
Ended up taking the development job and I’m actually really excited about it.
In case down the road I may want to do something more finance heavy, does anyone know how feasible it is to go from development to REIB?
Unless the shop you are joining has a team dedicated to acquisitions, put your hand up and ask to be heavily involved in the acquisition / capital markets processes.
They have a smaller group that does acquisitions. Actually, that was the group I originally interviewed with and would have gotten the offer for if it weren't for some restructuring internally.
I think I will reach out to the team and ask to pick up some surplus work there
Think long and hard before you move from development to brokerage in terms of stress, lifestyle, and upward mobility. Modeling can be easily learned on your own time through REFM, A.CRE, etc...
What exactly do you mean?
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