I'm not new to RE or finance... What can I do to advance my career and RE knowledge?

I have a slow couple weeks like I think a lot of us in the industry. I want to spend that time learning what I can while I'm stuck inside with nothing much to do.

I've been in the industry for about 5 years now and have solid understanding of RE fundamentals. I know how to build a development/acq model with equity-first loan draws, partnership waterfalls, sensitivities, etc. I have my RE license and ARGUS cert. I'm in a great spot at my current firm and have a healthy amount of contacts in my market.

So with all of this, what can I do to improve my understanding of/desirability in RE or gain RE-adjacent skills/experience? Should I learn more about fixed-income? Stock markets? Taxes? RE law? Should I learn new software like Python or SQL? Read more RE news articles? Looking for the most immediate value-add that I can pick up now and that will help my REvcareer long-term. Thanks!

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A couple years ago my brother-in-law (he manages the construction side of our business) had concerns about stagnating in terms of learning. He was worried that by building the same product over and over again, he wouldn't be learning anything new. I remember telling him I don't care about learning, I only care about making money. I mean if the opportunity to learn something new presents itself, I will take it, but I won't go out of my way to learn more unless I'm certain it will directly benefit me aka make more money. I don't care if we build the same product over and over again for the rest of our lives. If it puts food on the table, I will happily do that. If there are other ventures that aren't too risky and I feel are within our capabilities, then I may consider those as well, but I won't go out of my way to pursue them for the sake of learning...I would only do it if the think the reward is worth the risk.

So with all of this, what can I do to improve my understanding of/desirability in RE or gain RE-adjacent skills/experience?

For myself, I think I know 90% of everything that there is to know about real estate development in my market. I've worked in small development, mid-size, and institutional and for the most part, the concepts are all the same, just different check sizes. Perhaps you already know 90% of what you need to know in your current position and the only way to really "learn" more is moving up the corporate ladder and being given more responsibility, in which case there's not much for you to do. Maybe instead of being focused on trying to learn that 10%, you could try using your knowledge to make more money via buying your first property? Just a thought

 

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