Starting on debt side at a pere 100

Would love to hear some opinions of starting on the debt side of a large repe shop doing everything from vanilla first position mortgages all the way to pref equity and construction loans. I would presume this is a good starting point as deal flow may be quicker than equity, opportunity to see more deals thereby learning strategy side more quickly. Would this be better than doing cmbs originating at a BB bank? Some friends I know who do that seem to do very little analysis, don't even adjust assumptions in models just check to see if certain credit metrics are hit. Is this accurate and does this set you up well to switch to equity side if I wanted to do this in a few years?

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I'm a huge advocate for starting on the debt side regardless. Have some bias behind that, but whether its at a PE shop, Lender, Broker, etc, debt gives you tons of volume which is crucial early on in your career. I can only really speak to the brokerage/lender side, but you'll definitely still see volume on the REPE side, just likely fewer transactions completed. I would shy away from trying to figure out what shop is the best place to start (REPE, BB, Brokerage, etc) and focus more on the sector of the business, ie. Debt, IS, Acquisition, so on. Personally, you can't go wrong with Debt, and top 100 PE will likely give you the same exit ops as CMBS at a BB.

 

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