Graduating in 2 years, what path to take?
I’m graduating in two years and currently work in residential real estate. I want to join commercial real estate once I graduate and eventually end up managing funds for a syndication or REIT. I have a lot of super newbie questions so please bear with me.
First, I just transferred to a school (UCI) as an Quant. Econ major. Does major matter to firms and should I switch? (I don’t lose any time if I switch ASAP)
My mentor recommended that I jump right into Marcus and millichap (MnM) once I graduate. His reasoning is that I’ll fit in well with IS and if I can survive there for 3 years, I’ll be golden. He wants me to develop hard skills as I work by taking classes for a RPA or other professional designation. In the meantime, I am studying Real Estate Finance and Investments by Jeffrey Fisher (slowly, as I have a strong engineering/calculus background, not a financial one)
What do you guys think of this? What would you change? I did a lot of reading on this site already and heard basically everyone hating on MnM due to their brutish, cold-calling methods. They seem to produce the best salespeople though.
What type of internship should I get, or is working transactions in residential enough? What skill set is required for the internships? I’m a 4.0gpa that transferred from engineering to Econ as a senior if that matters at all.
Is going for an analyst position somewhere the best route? I don’t quite understand what it is/what it does, but I see many many people on this site going for it.
What is REPE? How is it different from PERE? I actually searched this on this forum but it was filled with acronyms and jargon that I didn’t really understand it. I looked around for a FAQ but I didn’t see one on mobile.
Basically I learn quick, am willing to work hard and grind, and I’m hungry. You guys are smarter than me so I have to ask: What do you guys think?
Thanks!
Not saying you don't know what you want to do, but at your age and "newbie" level, I wouldn't focus so intently on one path in real estate. There is way more out there than you currently know.
Econ major is fine. Your major doesn't matter unless it's something absurd. Take some finance classes.
Does your mentor work for M&M? That's oddly specific advice. Anyhow, working for a brokerage firm (and there are much better firms than that...) is typical advice because of ease of entry, and because having any commercial experience on your resume is better than no commercial experience, not because working at a brokerage shop is some inherently valuable rite of passage. I worked for Colliers for a year. It wasn't noteworthy and I've had internships that have proven to be infinitely more impactful from both a career and knowledge perspective.
Much like I wouldn't recommend you laser focus your specific career path as a rising junior in college, I wouldn't recommend you trying to find a specific first job either. You need to be open minded and flexible in your approach or you'll miss a ton of opportunity out there. Also, even if M&M "produced the best salespeople," and they don't, that's not necessarily a required trait, depending on where you end up.
Working in residential is not enough. Fair or not, people in commercial real estate think all residential people are decent to good looking 35-45 year old housewives with too much makeup who repeat things they heard on HGTV. You need to find an internship in commercial real estate doing absolutely whatever.
It's a good route. Analysts typically run numbers, whether they be financial data, market data, etc., and prepare reports. This is more relevant experience to working at a REIT than cold calling is.
PERE is a news website. REPE is shorthand for "Real Estate Private Equity." Essentially, they're the same thing, since the letters stand for the same words. Don't read into it too much.
Talk to as many people as you possibly can. Experience as many things as you possibly can. Read as many things as you possibly can. The more your knowledge and exposure base grows, the more informed your decisions about your future will be. You truly learn something new in this business every day - sometimes shit you don't even want to know but you have to for one reason or another - but you always want to make decisions with the best information available.