List of Good REPEs/Operators/Developers - Starting This For The Community

This is what I have for now, please feel free to add more as I don't think we cover enough info in RE comparing to other industries. I'm filtering out firms that pay >= 90k all in 1st year (in no particular order) and have had a good reputation for learning experience in the industry. Blackstone Brookfield AM Starwood Capital Hines CBRE Global Investors Prologis JLL IMMorgan Stanley REI PGIMTPGCarlyle DivCo West Spear Street Lone StarFortressAres Greystar Crow Holdings Invesco Harrison Street Stockbridge CapitalBain CapitalOakTree Hudson AdvisorsGICAngelo GordonClarion PartnersApolloKKR Walton Street Rockwood Carmel Partners Bentall GreenoakPIMCOCIM Artemis Partners Colony CapitalKSL Capital Partners Rockpoint Group Westbrook Partners JPM Real Estate Americas UBS RE

25 Comments
 

I dunno man, I think it's pretty useless to try and have a massive singular list of real estate firms that are "good to learn at". Personal opinion is it will just be disorganized and lead to confusion. What exactly are we targeting here? There's widely different firms included - development, funds, owner operators, Angelo Gordon does distressed debt lol.

And what's it to say smaller firms are not included here which typically produce the sharpest/smartest folks? You really think the analyst at Blackstone is going to know more than the one at an active owner operator / smaller fund doing 10x higher level of responsibility? It's often the case smaller shops are better for learning, larger shops are better for the pay.

 

= 90k 1st year and good reputation for learning from what I've read across forums. I understand your concern with different businesses but as a student, I don't believe it's necessary to be picky, doesn't matter if it's a bank that has a RE arm or a traditional PE shop that has a RE arm, I think we all should view them with the same importance. I don't really care about prestige or anything so landing any of these roles is good enough for me, I grew up in a 3rd world country so anything that pays above 90 and provides great learning experience = heaven. 

 

But definitely get why you said that though cause they might have different strategies; maybe we'll sort them out on firms that do asset-level deals and ones that do LBOs/bigger transactions or something. Might need your help on this.

 

I get you. Just commenting on how to improve it I guess with a side of sass, don’t mean to be a dick.

I think it would be useful to start up a Google Sheets repository of firms to help people out. I can make one later tonight to kick it off and provide some structure to organize it a bit better. Would start with separating this out by:

  • Funds
  • Owner/Operators
  • REITs
  • Developers
  • Lenders
  • Firm Size (Investment Team / Total)
  • AUM ($) / If Applicable
  • Strategy
 

I mean... you've got a good list of equity shops in here, but that's about as far as you're gonna get.

Real estate development in particular is highly fragmented.  Big national firms aren't always the most prolific, profitable, or most reputable in any given market.  Hines and CIM are everywhere, obviously, but I wouldn't say they're the best of the best in NYC (a market I know).  So if you want a list of good operators or developers, makes sense to focus on a particular region/metro area

 

That would be great if we can have a list of owners/operators as well. To my limited knowledge, these are the only firms that I've been seeing a lot of people mention as notable shops, seems like there's not enough information coverage on the developers/operators in which we can definitely get into with others' help like yourself.

 
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Second this. Firms that invest nationally such as REPE/RE debt shops you may be able to tier, but much more difficult for development/operators. Development is a local business and often times the "top developers" of a city are not necessarily the Tishmans and Hines (and even the Tishmans/Hines basically operate as if it is it's own development firm within that region/city). I am in a "tier 1" city and I guarantee you've never heard of the biggest developers here unless you live here and work in real estate development.

 

Great point, this is why I wanted to start a post for more transparency and info, despite having made a mistake of not grouping them beforehand. There are so many operators/developers out there that are not hugely discussed on wso that happens to bring in great experience as well, so I was hoping others can chime in with their respective knowledge.

 

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