REPE Acquisitions NYC - Hours

I’m currently a 1st year Analyst at an REPE firm in NYC. Before starting, I expected to work maybe 45-55 hours, but now that I’m settled I’m constantly pulling 65-70 hour weeks. I can somewhat manage this for now, but I know long-term I’m definitely going to want a job where I spend less time in the office and have a better lifestyle.

I know there has been a thread on hours in real estate before, but I wanted to focus more specifically on the principal side, especially in major markets like NYC. In that other thread, I saw a few responses where the hours looked similar to mine, but also plenty of answers more along the 40-50 hour range where people were still earning decent paychecks at reputable firms.

The issue I’m having isn’t even that I myself work so many hours - I know as a 1st year analyst I’m expected to grind, eat shit, and prove my value. But even some of the VPs and associates are in the office until midnight to 2 AM on a regular basis. I know if I stay here, this is the lifestyle I’ll be expected to maintain and there’s no way that I’m going to want to be in the office all night when I’m pushing 30, let alone 25.

For a little more color, without giving too much information away, I work in acquisitions and my firm, although established, is in a high-growth stage with heavy deal flow. Part of me thinks that this is the main reason for the long hours, as someone needs to manage all of these deals, but then again I wonder why if we have so much money coming in that they don’t just hire more people so that we don’t all have to slave our entire lives away.

I know that REPE is still “finance”, but I never expected it to be this bad. My question is - is it reasonable to think that I’ll be able to exit somewhere working in the same role in the same market but with better hours? Or is this the reality of working in acquisitions in NYC?