RE Analyst Position Starter Pack: What would you suggest? Realistically and Practically speaking.
What would be The Top 10 Things an incoming real estate acquisitions analyst should do, know and prepare himself for prior to starting an acquisitions position?
Are there any online resources that teach how to do any or all of the following items:
-Task organization/management (i.e., practical tools/methods) and daily prioritisation from most critical to least critical
-Financial Modeling (i.e., building, maintaining, developing analytical models in excel)
-Financial Analysis/Forecasting
-Market Research
-Creating Deal Memorandum for investors and investment summaries for management
-Drafting LOI's
-Creating/developing/organising a Broker/Property Owner network
-Lease abstraction and summaries
Thank you.
If you are not at too lean of a shop, you're going to get eased into things slowly. It shouldn't be their first rodeo with a new analyst and they will help get you up to speed. Not to say you shouldn't prepare, but don't overly stress yourself out. The vast majority of what you're wondering about is learned on the job.
To address your bullets in order...
1. You'll find your own system for this. I personally use a mix of using my email inbox as a to do list, having a structured to do list in OneNote by priority/due date, and using sticky notes for urgent ad hoc tasks. In terms of daily prioritization - you already said it, tackle things in most critical to least critical order. If you're not sure what that looks like, ask. Another thing to keep in mind, on the acquisitions side there's generally speaking not a predictable "day-to-day" list of tasks. New things are always flying at you and you need to be on your feet and ready to pivot as needed.
2. Adventures in CRE has a ton of great content and example models. They have free videos on YouTube with walkthroughs of modeling and concepts. Other good YT resources are Joshua Kahr and Break Into CRE. There are paid courses, but I wouldn't bother unless you have literally zero modeling/excel knowledge.
3. All firms have different approaches to forecasting. Wait and see. For analysis it really just comes with experience, there's not really a way to teach that without getting hands on.
4. Again, depends on your firm's capabilities. If they have research subscriptions its easy and they're all very intuitive. Other research tools include brokerage research reports, industry organization research reports (e.g. ICSC for retail, NMHC for multifamily, etc.), and census/government data for demographic stuff. Explore what's out there in your free time. Google is your friend.
5 & 6. Don't sweat these yet. Investment memos vary between shops there's no way to learn it without being on the job. You can try looking at some of the OMs you can get from CBRE's online listing website, but those only present the upside (good for investor decks but you need to know how to pick out the risks for internal memos). For LOIs, most shops you won't draft those at the analyst level and at some shops they just get their legal team to do it and acquisitions never touches it beyond a review.
7. Same way you network to get the role. Reaching out on LinkedIn or at conferences. You'll also get plenty of introductions through work organically. At the analyst level don't stress this and let it happen naturally - you're not expected to source deals yet. Focus on learning your job for now.
8. Again, legal is usually going to draft term sheets, but you'll learn it on the job if not.
9. If you have in-house leasing, they'll do this. If not, there's going to be a template they give you and you can look at historical examples.
SB'd - Thank you CREnadian.
Excellent and very practical response.
Alot of this is firm-specific (i.e. if you're doing multifam you wont be abstracting leases) but here's a few things I would recommend across the board:
These are probably the two biggest pieces of advice I could give a new start in acq.
SB'd
Thank you! So, if there is any lead time in start dates, it seems it would be smart to request their core excel UW material and get to work studying it well in advance (not sure how kosher such a req is but it would help the up-prepping).
I've never seen it done, but I'm sure it can't hurt to ask for a few models, investment committee memos, etc to browse before you start.
If you can't get your hands on any from your firm specifically, it might be worth spending an hour or two in some generic models getting super comfortable tracing cells, auditing formulas, etc.
Smart. Yes, good idea on both points. It cannot hurt to ask (proprietary uw concerns notwithstanding) and model autopsying would help.
Yeah great idea, we've done this for analysts in the past at my shop. They might say no but worth an ask for sure.
Thank you guys. I will definitely do this as a matter of course from now on. If they say no - no worries.
How long do they usually give you in that world from getting hired to starting the job Day 1?
I think it is 2 weeks to 1 month, with 2 weeks being the most common albeit I am not 100% sure.
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