Hi WSO,
First posting here and I am reaching out for some career advice.
I have been working in the corporate office for an establish luxury hotel owner/operator for the past 5 years. I am in a mid-manager role (reporting to a VP) focused on CapEx budgeting/planning/tracking across the portfolio (~25 Hotels), as well as managing all the finance/accounting activities on our two new development projects (~150M-550M). The new development tasks include project budget-cost tracking, cashflow reporting, draw packet creation and loan covenant monitoring. I completed the MSRE program at NYU while working full time in effort to round out my RE finance/investment and networking skill sets since I have not had direct work experience. I really enjoyed the modeling/underwriting analysis curriculum and continue to work on case studies on my down time to keep honing my modeling abilities.. Graduated about a year ago a started the career pivot job search.
Understanding I have an atypical background, I have been seeking out roles with RE Investment Orgs where my current work experience would be transferable: FP&A, Asset Mgmt, Fund Reporting & Accounting, Development Project Finance, etc. After what I feel has been 1000s of applications/ LinkedIn Messaging-networking/ internal external recruiter calls - I've only landed interviews with 6 different firms with outcomes that ranged from 3 rounds to just initial screening.. I am starting to feel a bit stuck, I'm in my early 30's and feel my past experience has me pigeonholed. I like my current organization, but it is a very flat organizational structure and there is not a real opportunity for me to get exposure to underwriting/modeling or other RE investment exposure...
I am open to any and all advice here. Also, if anyone knows of any opportunities out there where my skills would be transferable and I could get my foot in the door, I'd appreciate your assistance!
Thank you
Hi,
My post might not be super helpful, but can give some perspective on modelling aspect of the job. I recently managed to break into a small hotel-focused value-add REPE fund (<£1B AUM) in London. We’re currently asset managing < 10 hotels in central London. Similarly, the organisational structure is very flat and I’m the only analyst working directly with a director.
Prior to this role I spent a year after graduation in commercial analytics working a lot with Excel (PQ, PPivot) and Alteryx and a bit of Tableau.
In order to make a switch to REPE I leveraged my analytics experience and learned in 6 months CRE modelling mostly by utilising A.CRE and Break into CRE courses. I found financial modelling for real estate quite easy compared to more advanced data analytics.
Currently I get to enhance our current Asset Management processes (Monthly/Quarterly reporting), and underwrite new acquisition (while working on new enhanced templates).
After first month I realised that while my team is very experienced and knowledgeable, I myself after completing these two courses and 1 YOE in analytics will be the Excel guy in the team and can add a lot of value over time. I am sure I can improve our AM and acquisitions processes from building stronger templates, automating stuff and underwriting more, faster and more accurately even though I haven’t done it before in the context of real estate at all. I believe there is enough content online these days to learn hard skills outside of the working environment.
at this stage in your career you’re probably very competent and will quickly hit the ground running once you secure a role. I think you should a) strengthen your general excel and analytics skill set to feel confident to pass any excel modelling tests and b) revise your application strategy if you’re not getting enough interviews. It’s always helpful to narrow down the scope of attack, send repeated personalised messages to the same people rather than spread the same old message to hundreds.
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