Residential Real Estate Agent On The Side In College or Intern On Boutique CRE Brokerage Team
Hey guys, I’m faced with a tough decision right now and figured I should get your opinions before jumping into a conclusion. Some of these stuffs might be vague/naive knowledge of mine since I’m still a student so if I said something wrong then my apologies. Here’s the dilemma:
I just recently got my real estate license and was wondering if I should go on the resi side or CRE side considering factors below that kind of pull me towards the residential despite my goal was always to work at a top operators/developers like Hines or any REPE shop out there with a great track record. Here are the reasons:
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I think the CRE brokerage overall might look better on my resume but what if I do a good amount of volumes in residential specializing in 2-4 units value-add deals; would that experience in a sense be better than just being an intern at a CRE brokerage even if it’s not that relevant to CRE?
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I’ve had the chance to purchase a single-family rental in which I’m currently renting out at the moment. In terms of using this to my advantage in the agent position, I’m guessing it would favor my pitch in the residential side and help me network/win clients which hopefully will transition to income. Given this background, would you recommend me to try and hustle for a side income at the moment with this residential RE pitch or just stick with CRE since that is my end goal but give up the opportunity cost of making extra income.
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Training. I’ve heard from others that once you’re in CRE brokerage apart from the DD/Underwriting training it’s mostly just cold calling. I’ve already had exposure to underwriting side (mostly CRE multifamily) and right now I’m just looking for training on lead generation, contracts, CRMs, etc. which residential RE seem to focus more on. Is this notion true and if so, are there anything else to the training part of CRE brokerage?
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Deal ownership and work capacity. In my own knowledge, interns in CRE don’t get to really “own” deals and share commission (I might be wrong) and since I’m only available part time as a student, I doubt I’ll be able to earn past 15-20 an hour. The only downside for resi is that I’ll probably risk $500-1k of fees for signing up to services but that will clear if I close on one deal. I just want to confirm if this is true for the CRE side and if there’s any exception.
TLDR version: taking in deal ownership, potential income, part-time capacity, relevant experience for resume and training (not underwriting), considering that I want to eventually work on the principal side and start my own shop later, is there a big difference if I choose to work in residential real estate vs CRE brokerage as of the moment.
Also does anyone know of a website that post all 2023 summer internships for real estate like Adventis? Adventis seems to be focusing on the finance side of things, thank you!
Bump
I’d take the CRE brokerage internship. If your long term goal is to work for a developer then that internship will be more beneficial. With resi I don’t know if that’ll help you, it’s straight sales without the modeling part. Also, how do you know you’ll win clients? It’s a big what if. You’re in college and will be competing with people who do it full time. At the cre brokerage where I interned, there was training beyond the initial excel/Argus stuff. I doubt resi would be beneficial in anyway to you at this point considering your goals.
Thank you for your input. I have a friend who's also in college doing this part time and just closed on his 3rd deal in his first 6 months, I'm very much of an extrovert and have built a network for first time residential investor so I'm a bit more confident on the resi side in terms of winning clients, other than in CRE where it's majorly a veteran's industry. I've also already been trained with modeling since I interned for a multifamily operator for about a year, so not super worried about that, though it might be also worth it to mention that the brokerage is a boutique one so they might not have the training like CBRE/JLL or other big names out there. I guess it just narrows down to opportunity cost of making extra income versus doing something that's relevant. The resi brokerage also has a CRE arm in which I can be exposed to if necessary. With all this, do you still think I should weight more on the CRE side?
My thoughts/reactions to your items...
1. Doing resi deals, even 2-4 units will mean effectively zero to any institutional real estate buyside firm. If the other option is literally doing anything at a legit CRE brokerage, it is infinitely more useful than being a resi agent if you want to work in institutional real estate. This is my opinion, clearly, but the resi world and CRE are miles apart. Like just consider the fact that CRE brokers hire resi agents to sell/buy houses, the fields are just nowhere connected in all reality.
2. If you want your side gig/investments to be in SFHs, no problem or issue, but it won't make you any more or less attractive to buyside or CRE brokerage. Do not put in on resume in a meaningful way, or conflate it with institutional investment experience. I've seen people do this, not a good look, it screams "I don't understand your business" in the CRE world.
3. The good brokerage jobs/internships you want (and could get offered), will have you in some salaried or hourly type role supporting a senior broker and team in deal analytics, marketing, market analysis, and other bullshit tasks. Your training is watching and learning by proximity. They may assign you cold calling duties or handling in-bound sign calls or similar inquiries, all depends on firm/team. There are pure "congrats your a broker, start cold calling" places (this is the classic Marcus Millichap rep), I'd downrank those to more institutional brokerages, but still not bad experience while in school. FYI........ what do you think resi real estate brokerage is?? It's all cold calling!!!! or the similar, sure you can join a firm and get "Training" (that you pay for in cash and/or splits of commission per the structure). If you are comparing CRE brokerage to resi brokerage, I can't imagine how resi would be anything but worse (tbh, I've been far removed from that world for a very long time, but I worked at a joint CRE/resi small scale brokerage and I really can't imagine you get better training on the resi side, even if, not sure how it would really benefit you in CRE).
4. Doubt interns get to "share" commissions much, even if licensed. But..... making sales in resi world is really tough. I think that industry has like a 80% first year failout rate, with many never closing a single deal. Maybe you have a personal pipeline of friends/family that will give you listings and sales, but otherwise, good luck. If doing this part-time, it will be even tougher. Tbh, if you are wanting to have legit shot at a top shop like Hines, making money while in UG is the last thing you need to worry about.
Overall.... if you want to aim for institutional real estate, whether buyside or sellside, just aim all efforts in that direction. It is hyper competitive at all levels (just read WSO, tons want those jobs), and your competition is going crazy doing everything to prep for them. You will not be doing your long-term self any favors not starting now, and resi real estate is a world apart.
Good points but I guess I should’ve mentioned more details regarding the situation.
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