After doing various searches on this forum, I have noticed SF is a product that doesn't get discussed frequently on this forum. I have prior experience in a Capital Markets intern role at a small developer in the Multi-family space and have recently started working for a large publicly-traded home builder in a major East coast market within their land acquisitions group. It seems there is a certain "prestige" carried with working in CRE or MF vs. SF acquisitions.
Other than the obvious economies of scale positioning that MF has, what are other reasons that SF is not talked about nearly as much as MF is?
Nuances with key metrics/ratios/jargon aside, Is it relatively easy to switch over from a SF acquisitions role to an acquisitions role in CRE?
What is the overall perception of a professional working for a publicly-traded home builder?
Would anyone who has either worked in both or switched over from SF to another product be able to chime in?
It's more niche. Less firms go after this space, therefore less jobs are available in it. MF is a hot topic right now because it's very institutional. It's institutional because it has a steady cash flow stream and is pretty easy to understand. SF builders do not have that steady cash flow- you just need to sell at a high price and quickly.
I'll let someone else respond to that. Idk myself.
There's mixed reviews. I don't think it's bad experience. You will need to show you can model for that steady stream of cash flows and calculate various scenarios. You could transition to a really cool firm that does spec housing. Plus Development out in Beverly Hills has taken down some cool projects. There are numerous out there.
My very first real estate related internship was with a single family LP based in Southern California. Small shop of maybe 25 people total, 3 partners running things. They've done exceptionally well in the space because they were one of the first to court institutional capital for single family coming out of the S&L crisis. No one was really doing this then.
Anyways, the work seemed interesting and the top 8-10 people at this firm are all millionaires many times over. They were pretty hands on, lot of meetings with developer partners, lot of driving to check out sites, going with developers to meet with local officials, dealing with architects and landscape architects, etc. You can have a successful career and make plenty of money doing single family, it just comes down to preference I suppose.