Should I be wary of development shops hiring right now?

I recently got a Development Associate offer for an institutional developer in LA - I'm really excited about the position but I know development is a tough place to be right now. I'm taking it as a good sign that they're hiring and that they have a strong pipeline. Should I be nervous about hopping to a development firm right now?

 

Nothing is without risk right now. We(company I work at) are the equity behind a development platform and are pencils down at our level leading to the investment platform being constrained to a certain degree.

With that being said development is a risky business but I would say associates who perform well are probably not the first on the chopping block. If the firm has committed capital and believes they are active most you can do it take that at face value. 
 

I wouldn’t hesitate to go to a great platform if that’s the direction you want to go in. 

 
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You're a junior person.  You'll be fine.

People way overthink this stuff on this site.  No developer is hiring anyone without work for that person to do; people in general but also on WSO have a really bad habit of somehow assuming both omnipotence and incompetence in regards to employers.

These guys know their business better than you do.  Also, development shops tend to run pretty lean, especially in down markets like we're experiencing now.  If they're hiring, I promise they have something for you to do.  Will that be true in 10 years?  Maybe not, but who cares?  Go get your paycheck, get your experience, and worry about what the world looks like in 10 years, in 10 years.

 

Someone taking a dev job in 2021-22 should have been more nervous. I'd feel generally good about it now. Firms who can get projects off the ground right now will hopefully have one of the healthier delivery periods we've seen for a bit. And as others have mentioned, they probably wouldn't be hiring and tying up their overhead if they didn't think they could get projects off the ground (although I have seen cases where I've seen job postings for local developers only for them to go under a few months later, albeit these were typically for shady reasons and not completely market driven). 

To answer your question, though, I'd be wary of any job I take right now. Winners and losers will be made here. Make sure you understand their pipeline and how they capitalize their deals. Do you believe in the sector, markets, etc. and the ability for these to perform over the next few years?

 

In this market the company is probably looking o backfill due to large turnover. 
 

people can say development has 5-year shelf life, but acquisition, hard costs, and soft costs are up across the board, and that’s before considering that perm financing rates are at 6-7.5% right now. 
 

it’s brutal in RE. Especially development. You may have some deals to work on, you may have some jobs to do, but do not rely on your job security.

 

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