How much experience should you have before making the jump to either PERE or development? Interested in your thoughts on this. I have interacted with a couple smaller developers before where the typical progression would be something like architect/GC/Project manager -5- 7 years and then go work in house with a developer.
I have only met one big developer (think trammell, hines, tishman) and the person had an MBA. I know some bigger developers hire people without a ton of experience but are you really learning the development process? Or are you just cranking out models all day everyday?
PERE - haven't met anyone in this field but it seems like most people have a couple years of analyst, or underwriting under their belt before making the jump?
There isn't a catch-all answer to this, but development is one of those things that I view of more as an apprenticeship. All CRE is to some extent, but especially with development, I think you need someone teaching you the different job functions you mentioned and that you have to at least be tangentially knowledgeable on all aspects of the deal before you 'run the show'. So even if your background was in GC/PM, you need to understand the underwriting, capital stack, etc. On the flip side, if you are really plugged in on the debt/equity/fundraising side, you at least need to be able to speak intelligibly on construction, entitlement, etc.
REPE, at least in an acquisitions role, typically they want you to have the analyst background because they don't have teams of people checking the work of junior people, so if you need to prepare/evaluate a deal for IC you need to be airtight on the financial analysis/have 0 mistakes. I think with development the underwriting in-house is a little more 'abstract' since it's mostly about being able to manage the costs/budget and then the rents and pricing metrics are what they are when you stabilize/exit.