Is ACRE Worth it? What is the best way to prepare for Debt role?

I just graduated and I’m starting a CRE debt analyst role at an investment management firm in late June. I’ve got a good amount of free time over the next month and wanted to get some thoughts on whether ACRE is worth doing in my position.

I’ll mainly be underwriting, but I assume I’ll be working off internal templates, so I’m not sure how much value ACRE would add vs. other ways to prep.

That said, open to any advice at all. What do you wish you did in the few weeks before starting? Whether it's modeling, reading, market research, etc 

Thanks in advance for any insight.

8 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Just enjoy your last few weeks before you suffer working full time.

No matter how much you prep you don’t know or won’t learn enough to shake the table anyways.

And you don’t want sound overly smart or like you don’t have a life coming in.

Go travel on a short trip, get laid, enjoy freedom for a few weeks and be thankful you got a job in this shit economy out of school.

Cheers.

 

Can you give more details about the role? Debt fund? Originations? Underwriting? Suggestions will vary based on what exactly you'll be doing

 

I disagree a bit with the above. I think refining basic model skills before coming in can help get off to the right start, and it's not like it's going to completely consume you to do it over a month. Can easily work through it a few hours a day while still enjoying your time, taking a vacation, etc. This will depend on how much real estate modeling you've already learned before hand as some of it's basic. 

 

I highly ACRE. They walk you through step by step on how to model each property type. The videos are fairly easy to follow along. It is a great tool to learn the basics and be prepared for modeling/UW. 

 

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