Undergrad Career Path Guidance
Hey monkeys,
Undergrad lurker here and I'm pretty certain I want to do real estate straight out of undergrad, but don't have a REAL career plan in mind. I know I want to have those great hours (40-70, not 100), make decent-fantastic money, and have great upside potential. A lot to ask I know haha.
My Thoughts: I understand the opportunities in front of me (Dev, Acq, AM...) and they seem fantastic, but I'm worried about the disappointing salary out of college. I understand that this is an old-money industry and those who stay the course to get a high-status position will make the big schmackos, but I am wondering how long it takes to make it into the money and what is the best plan of attack to get there?
Are some positions more fast-tracked? Which positions have more upside potential/better experience? Should I aim for a smaller, family shop (more responsibility and hands-on) or a well-established firm (higher pay)?
Would love to hear about y'all advice and experiences.
TLDR: I love RE, but there are so many paths to choose from. What career path should I set myself on with the best balance of professional experience/development and making money, short-term and long-term?
I would caution you with getting into real estate for the wrong reasons. There are plenty of ways to make "big schmackos" out there and most of them will burn you out if you don't care about anything other than getting rich.
The "disappointing" salary out of college talk is nonsense. You're not worth what they pay you either way. You're there to learn and hopefully grow to the point where you can contribute.
I just wanted to get a clearer idea of how this industry compensates, I saw the "what is your RE comp" post and saw a ton of $50k-$60k analysts with years of experience. Sure their true contributions might be small, but I doubt they are contributing 1/3 as much as IB people (I know RE people may only work 60-80% of the hours IB does).
Just seems like 4 years of college, some experience and passion, and wanting to work really fucking hard is met with that salary challenge. Ima get in there anyways and make it work tho.
To coincide with my post above, if you're only making $50k-$60k with multiple years of experience, you are absolutely not getting paid your true value.
Still, real estate is a long game and is very entrepreneurial by nature. No one gets into this business to collect fat salaries. It's about about learning what you can until you can do your own deals. Even a lot of big swinging dicks don't make more than $200k-$300k a year salary and some don't even take one. They might make 7 or 8 figures that year, however.
If you're smart, go be a software engineer. Not sure about the more finance-heavy roles, but the built environment aspect only pays when you have more responsibility. With that, if you don't like what you're doing, the stress will chew you up and spit you out. The money only comes with increased pressure, and when you screw up, you screw up with a lot of zero's attached.
Emphasizing responsibility sounds about right. If you don't know your stuff, it seems pretty accurate that you won't be in that position for long.
Top RE Shops pay their analysts $70-80K with a 20-40% bonus depending on their annual performance. However, if you don't have a REPE internship, experience at ES/HFF/JLL/CBRE capital markets teams, or an institutional RE company on your resume as a senior, you're shit out of luck. That said, this industry is way more about networking than having a cute degree from a target school (and that helps) with a high GPA. If you're just breaking in, go to a brokerage shop, get the 50-60K base and work your ass off cause if you're good, you'll either get bonused well or tipped out on every deal you do. HFF/JLL pays their analysts a couple points of the total commission for every deal they work on. So instead of thinking you're worthy of high salary, focus on the team, the deal exposure, the mentorship, and growth opportunities. If you're on the right team with the right leadership and you work hard, they'll take care of you. But if you're pure $ focused, go do something else.
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