Having no experience
Currently a junior at a large state school on the east coast, goal is to get into development, however, I have no relevant experience. How would you overcome this? I tried to get an internship for this past summer but had no luck, considering all that happened. I’m getting better at modeling and have taken relevant coursework but I don’t know how much that would help. I’m continuing to network and putting myself out there. Still, i feel I’ll be at a disadvantage when competing with people who have experience.
I would really like to do development straight out of under grad but realize that’s tough. I should add, I don’t care about top 10 shops. The markets I’d like to be are NYC/NJ.
It’s all about relationships. Take people out to lunch, ask for advice and you’ll eventually land something. Use www.Apollo.io to get emails of people in the industry you want.
Bumping this, in somewhat of a similar situation.
I remember listening to an interview with Wharton professor Peter Linnerman back when I was in an MBA program at a large state school in the east. The question/topic came up about the best place to start a career in CRE. He gave a simple answer that I will attempt to paraphrase as best I can remember (for context, this was like 06/07, so different world/time)....
paraphrasing... "it doesn't matter, just get in the game and start". He went on to explain that CRE is more mobile/fluid/meritocratic than other industries and people can and do move up and down based on abilities and tenacity. Thus, if your best available option is landlord/tenant rep brokerage or commercial appraisal or bank lending or whatever... take it.
You can keep learning, networking, and proving yourself to move up. You can also use a grad program as an accelerant/reset later as well (increasingly a needed move as more and more institutional jobs are requiring grad degrees for consideration). Development firms do sometimes hire directly from UG, but its not the norm. People often enter with some other related CRE experience or come from related fields like law/architecture/construction/gov't/etc.
Investment sales brokerage and D/E brokerage are probably the "best" options for getting hired direct out of UG from the big state schools (assuming you are a b-school type major), banking/direct lending is another good option. Commercial appraisal is actually better than the WSO crowd things, some of my friends from my UG RE classes went to commercial appraisal, I think everyone is now in development or REPE and has been for years.
bottom line... my favorite WSO saying applies..... The best job is the one you get offered!
I went to a BIG 10 school and networked into a full time REPE acquisitions role out of UG, so I’ll chime in based on my experiences.
With zero experience, the best place to start is networking and seeking internships with local real estate groups. They will be more receptive to your brand/story (local student wanting to get into real estate) and likely respect your efforts to break into the industry. The two industry professionals I would aim to network with:
Investment Sales Brokers – I can guarantee there will be a broker in your college town who went to your business school. Interning with an Investment Sales Broker would give you the opportunity to work on live deals and help with investment memorandums, market research, and high level proformas. Working with a Broker would also help you build a network and lateral to another internship/role later in UG.
Owner Operators – Explore who the biggest players are in your local market (ideally with integrated property management). Working for an owner operator (GP/Sponsor) would give you insight on how investment decisions are made and how buyers can provide value to their investors. The work may be more administrative, and less transaction oriented as an intern, but you can sell it as great experience on a resume.
The benefit of working for a local real estate company is it could also give you the chance to extend a part time internship throughout the school year. I highly recommend this. There are numerous threads on WSO that discuss the steps on how to cold email and build strong networking skills so I would start reading those. My first two internships weren’t posted online or marketed, I reached out through mutual connection and proposed them.
There is no typical path in real estate, but here was mine for reference:
Sophomore Summer: Interned with retail owner operator
Junior School Year: Interned with local retail brokerage
Junior Summer: REIT Acquisitions/Capital Markets
Senior School Year: Continued with REIT
1st Year Full Time: REPE Acquisitions
Hope this helps. Feel free to shoot me a PM if you have any more specific questions.
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