Tech Pm -> REPE with a twist
Hey everyone, been following this forum as a guest for a while but I’m ready to jump into the conversation.
Im a tech product manager at a series A startup. We’re doing cool stuff, but I’ve always been far more interested in finance and real estate. I saved aggressively during the first few years of my career as a SWE and used that $ to lever up and buy 1.9M in commercial RE (2 properties). Those properties are now worth around 2.5M.
I’m very low on cash and little bit too levered. My tech PM job pays pretty 💩 but I did it for the people management / creativity piece of the job.
I would love to do what I love - real estate investing, analysis, and relationship building for the next 5-10 years while I learn, build my cash position + continue buying in my asset class.
I live in Boulder Co, what would you do if you were me to get to this point? (I can not refi due to prepayment penalties)
How are you too levered if the properties have appreciated from 1.9 to 2.5M? I’m assuming there’s been some rent growth or new leases signed?
You’d have to tell us more about the property for us to give you advice.
Whats your DSCR? Do you need to put Capital into the building? Are you losing money after interest & capex?
As I said, I cant refi due to prepayment penalties. I also dont want to sell, I’d like to pay down these mortgages and hold long term.
I’m making $ on both. Bought around 7 cap and currently hitting ~10 based on the purchase price. Point is, I really don’t have the cash to buy more deals. I’d like to keep them, pay them off, and hold forever.
If I could spend my time getting paid to learn more about the industry, underwrite more deals, that would help me tremendously long term.
genuinely, i would think heavily about moving into a corporate real estate gig at a tech firm. Good pay, good exposure and experience, get the benefits of working at a tech company, and tend to travel to cool places as the company grows. i'm an analyst at an institutional developer in a tech heavy city and have been envious of this role for a while... thinking of making a switch pretty soon..
How much do gigs like that pay? And where would be some examples of these roles?
As I said below it's hard to gauge comp but I believe it's pretty good - obviously not going to be Blackstone REPE level but still good all things considered.
The roles that I have seen are the guys evaluating new office space - either leasing or acquiring outright. For a company expanding this is pretty cool as you'll be going to new cities for tours and meeting brokers quite often. Obviously there is a decent level of analysis that would go into these deals but i cant really speak to it.
I have also seen these guys acquiring land and older buildings in cities and then developing into a to-spec office, or redeveloping and repurposing older buildings into quality office space. Have also seen them do some multifamily development and acquisitions for housing their transient staff.
All in all it seems to be similar to REPE/development but under the guise of owner occupier vs pure investment, and then on top of that there's the benefits of working for a tech company
Kind of curious which Corporate RE roles you have seen that have these kinds of responsibilities or excitement for the matter? Certainly sounds interesting and very much in contrast to the offer I received a while back in corporate RE role at a FAANG company. Base was $80k for analyst plus 10 percent bonus, 3 years experience plus all the perks tech company offered.
Overall, it was not a stimulating role from what I could tell. They were doing both acquisitions and leasing of additional office and data center across the Americas, which sounded good. However, when i got the case study before the interview to model out, all my numbers were totally out of whack which my interviewers acknowledged. In short, they told me they were throwing cash into real estate for the taxation benefits as opposed to holding money in other forms/assets and essentially locking in their cost over the long-term as opposed to renting space. The team were nice people, but not as bright or "in tune" with RE compared to other people I've met in lending, REPE, development, or brokerage. They were definitely there more so for the name of it being a FAANG company than RE.
Are theses positions very rare and competitive? What’s the WLB like in these roles?
Honestly it’s difficult to get much info on these roles apart from anecdotally speaking to people. Funnily enough I think the places are limited but I don’t think they are that competitive because saying you work in corporate real estate isn’t prestigious enough for some people… WLB-wise they are great as far as I know and mirror the general WLB in tech as a whole (obviously this can depend on which company you’re at). Not at all sure about comp but get the sense it’s pretty nice
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