Request: Day in the life of Investment Sales

Hi everyone. I’m looking to leave my role and get into IS this year. Regardless of your location, title (preferably analyst/associate), and asset class. For those who are working/worked at CB, JLL, C&W, Newmark, and etc. Could you please share your day in the life? I really appreciate the help!

 

What role are you in currently? What asset class do you want to focus on? I'm also going to be getting into investment sales. Right now I'm still in my undergrad and will be doing an IS internship this summer. I know a lot of firms have a training program that gets you ready to become a broker. And when you begin with no experience usually you work under a senior broker - cold calling, researching, basically feeding him/her prospective deals. No salary at most places though, 100% commission but if you try hard you can start making money after 12ish months.

 

Do you work in more institutional IS or middle market? I ask because I'm going to be going into sales as well but with more focus on middle market assets. Many of the younger brokers I spoke with (less than 3 years in) said they started seeing good traction 6 months to a year in. One guy actually closed 3 deal in his first five months but he either had connections coming or is an anomaly. 

Also, how did you survive going 24 months without pay?  

 

Broker (ignore title) not at one of those shops. At a middle markets firm in NYC. Day to day consists of cold calling, sitting in on calls with buyers investors, tours, responding to buyers asking for diligence, working with marketing team/department on OM's.

At those firms you're either starting out as an analyst on a large team and doing a lot of that minus the cold calling. On some of those teams you're going as a group to pitch meetings or you could be a general analyst for the office. That is more capital markets/large transactions. These companies also have middle markets teams where you will be doing the above day to day including calling. More so Cushman, I believe CBRE has a smaller transactions team. 

 

Realistically you'll be using Costar, pulling together a list of owners, contacting them if they would like a free BOV done for one of their properties. 5 out of 10 will tell you to f*** off, 4 out of 10 will say they're not interested or worried about capital gains and finding replacement property, the remaining one person will let you do a BOV for them. Hope that helps.

 
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worked for a long time in IS at a top team top brokerage, duties were mostly:

1) broker/owner cc's me on email with data dump to create models for BOVs

2) if preparing BOV for more formal pitch, gathering market data and random BS and putting into a pitch deck

3) if preparing OM, doing similar stuff to BOV but working with a graphic designer to make it extra pretty

(#1-3 are all fairly similar and consist mostly of me sitting at my desk crunching numbers and moving charts and pictures around on slides.  This was how I spent probably 75% of my time)

4) if deal is live, corresponding with analysts from buyers about underwriting questions, or facilitating DD process once under contract (basically forwarding info requests back and forth and putting files in a virtual deal room)

5) I would occasionally get out of the office (maybe 1 day a week) to tour properties (either to help myself underwrite/make OM, or to tour potential buyers on live deals when my broker was double booked, or to tour comps or just check out new deals for fun), and also occasionally for in-person live pitches of BOVs

Overall my hours weren't too bad, typically like 45-50 hours per week with occasional rougher weeks, and probably 80-90% of my time was at my desk vs 10-20% out at properties / meeting with clients.  I was also friends with a lot of junior leasing brokers in the bullpen and would usually go to random events with them after work to get free drinks and random raffle prizes i didn't deserve - so there was usually an extra few hours per week of "networking".

 

I'd say this is pretty accurate for a strong team working on large deals. There are a few different pillars. You can be working on 1-4 properties at once, all at different stages, depending on your team. BOVs: your broker will be getting requests for BOVs and BOV updates, which you will handle and your broker will review. For larger/newer buildings or portfolios, a full pitch book could be requested from the potential client, which you will also make (research, valuation, calling comps, etc). OMs: Hopefully, after providing your value, or pitch, the client selects your boss as their broker. You will then spend several weeks building a 50+ page book that covers the market, the investment upside, and the details of the asset. Marketing: After the OM is complete, your boss will begin a marketing process and speak to groups of potential buyers. Eventually narrowing it down to a shortlist, and eventually a buyer. Throughout that process, you will be directly responsible for answering lists of specific questions that potential buyers have, and speaking to the client to sometimes get those answers. Outside of COVID, and depending on your team, you may also have the chance to shadow your MD on property tours to take notes/answer granular questions. DD: Once a buyer is selected, you will assist in providing necessary documents to the buyer and again, answering questions.

This role is night and day different from some of the other answers on this post, as an entry-level IS position can entail what I outlined above, or alternatively can have you cold calling as a broker in an "eat what you kill" environment. It just depends on what you're looking for in a job.  

 

I would also add that your hours will vary depending on the brokers you support and how many analysts there are. I work for a few high production brokers and it’s hard to find good support staff given the current analyst shortage. This results in longer hours and getting spread thin across more deals at different stages. Make sure to negotiate a fair salary, but more importantly good bonus packages and/or a % of the marketed deals you’re worked on (assuming you’re coming into the job with relevant exp). 

 

This is very accurate and represents my responsibilities as an analyst on a lean brokerage team with the Partners having left institutional brokerages a couple of years ago to start their own platform. BOV's, OM's take up most of your time, with DD coordination and marketing facilitation sprinkled in. Little client-facing interaction, mostly doing analysis and occasionally get to interact with clients on pitches/events. Can expect comp to sit around $50 - $60k + discretionary bonus for first year or two. Most important thing when finding this role is sitting under a broker who is willing to teach you and who is also working hard to get more assignments, as they'll be more inclined to pay their analyst a higher bonus with a higher deal flow.

 

60-75k is pretty standard for base salary I think, but most teams will share commission splits with the analyst too.  At my office (major metro CB/CW/JLL) there was no standardized way to do this, it completely depended on a) how generous the broker you work for is and b) how many deals they do.  My broker would cut me a check for 2.5% of the commission after each closing which put my total comp $100k+.

 

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