RE seems to have such a wide range in # of hours worked. For the people that are concerned about choosing a path with good work/life balance, I thought it'd be interesting to get a thread going with anecdotal cases of how many hours you work and what type of firm/position you are in. I'll start:
*Don't need this to turn into a comp thread (we already have one), but might be helpful to add comp numbers for reference.
Company: Boutique/family office Position: Associate (AM and Transactions) Location: SoCal Hours: 50 hrs/wk about 95% of the time. No weekends. Friday Hours: Same as the rest of the week Comp: Yr 1 - Estimated all-in $110-120k
Past Company: Large institutional owner-operator Postion: Analyst (Mostly AM, a few acquisitions) Location: Tier 1 City Hours: Typical week (50% of weeks) were ~45-55 hours. Light weeks (25%) were 40-45. Busy weeks (25%) were usually 60-70 hrs/wk. Rarely had to come in a few hours on a weekend. Could usually take a long enough lunch to get a quick workout in. Friday Hours: People start leaving around 430, office empty by 530/6. Comp: Yr 1 - 80-85k all-in Yr 2 - 95-100k all-in
Past Company: LifeCo Investor Position: Intern, but this applies to all positions in the company. (100% AM) Location: Tier 1 City Hours: 9-5/530 with long lunches. But these were the most unbearable hours I've ever worked. Extremely slow and boring. Would never do it again. Friday Hours: Leave at 430 instead of 5.
Company: REPE, AUM 5B+ Position: Associate (Acquisitions with minor AM) Location: SoCal Hours: 40 hrs/wk about 90% of the time. No weekends. Friday Hours: Leave around 4/4:30
Past Company: Large brokerage Postion: Analyst/Associate Location: SoCal Hours: Most weeks were ~45-55 hours. Light weeks 40-45. Busy weeks usually 60-70 hrs/wk. Usually a few weekend hours but from home. Once promoted, all the above went down by about 5-6 hours. Friday Hours: Top brokers by 4, rest of team by 5:30/6.
Wow. The amount of people moving from brokerage to REPE is actually impressive. How hard is it to get into those big brokerages?
This would be an entirely different thread, and I was actually thinking of doing an AMA/background post on this once it slows down at year end. That being said, I would say it's a little more varied than IB. The problem is that analyst positions at brokerages/investment sales teams/capital markets groups are a mixed bag. It's not that hard to get into some brokerage firms, but it's much more difficult to land on a well established team where you are being exposed to high deal volume and quality institutional networking opportunities (which lead to good exit opps). The exit strategy is even more of a mixed bag. This is anecdotal but I can tell you I landed on a great brokerage team basically through blind luck, and of the 20+ people I became close with at the firm that were doing roughly the same thing as me in the 2-3 year period, probably 5 went to REITs, 5 continued on to brokerage (or are still trying to), another 2-3 went to developers, 2-3 to REPE, with the rest going to work for either small private shops or going to get their MBA/MRED.
EDIT: I would say that the team itself that you work on is even more critical than IB when it comes to setting yourself up down the road, unless you have an existing network already in the market you want to land.
Company: Large investor w/ 10b+ RE AUM Position: Senior VP Location: HK/Tokyo/Singapore Hours: 80 (includes travel and work outside office) Comp: 500+ all in