Questions for Entry Development Associate Interview
I have a second round interview for a Development Associate position coming up and would like to know some good talking points or questions to bring up during the interview. The product is Class A office and multifamily in a major market (NYC/Boston/DC).
I have a basic understanding of development but no previous experience. My experience is as an Asset Management and acquisitions analyst for a REIT with no value add or development aspect, $20B AUM.
How involved is the development team in sourcing and analyzing deals? Are you going to be pulled on to utilize the acquisition/investment analysis skillz you have when looking at land or older properties to reposition?
Are you going to utilize the Asset Management exp to assess a b class opportunity and see if operation enhancement and redevelopment would provide adequate returns?
Who are the investors and what are the constraints on your capital? Is the strategy to be quiet and assemble property while raising equity, or do you have some Chinese dudes who just bank roll you and the firm collects fees and promote?
How close are you to the assets, are you going to be seeing and touching them?
How flat is the group's org structure, will you have access to the partners and MDs, or are you running excel until midnight.. Cold and alone, living vicariously through IG and stalking your ex's......
I'd give those broad points a thought and come up with questions and CONVERSATION from there. Also talk about liking the idea of helping in creating a building and seeing it
thanks this is very helpful
There are many roles in CRE Devleopment including: seeking out opportunities/bus development, site due dilligence and pre-dev work (environmental/permitting, zoning approvals, community engagement, project budgeting, financing and capital structuring, team assembly), construction and project management, and exit (asset disposition, refinancing).
Understand which role(s) you will be a part of, which will help you base your question. Does this firm do a lot of spec devleopment? Who are their equity sources?
Questions: 1. How are the firm's projects are funded (equity partners? corporate revolver? deal-by-deal? placement agent?) This will have a huge impact on what projects you are able to chase, attitudes towards building, etc. 2. How do they view development within the context of their overall investment mantra? Is it a public REIT highly sensitive to occupancy thresholds? This question is arguably getting more important as we near the top of the cycle. Development will be the first place a lot of shops scale back when the market starts to turn. 3. What is your day to day--modeling, investor reporting, design, contractor interface, entitlements, financings, all of the above? 4. What is the project pipeline? Very important question. Many development shops may have "deals" but they are too hairy, the leasing market isn't cooperating, they have overly conservative investors...you need to get a sense for how likely it is that the projects and pipeline are real. Otherwise, you may be working on entitling projects the company has no intention of building for 5-10 years.
Thanks!
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