What even is Investment sales?
Recently got a job offer to work in investment sales, junior investment sales, for a MM commercial real estate brokerage out Miami/Atlanta. During the interviews they mentioned hitting the phones and coming with them to meetings or follow up calls w “warm leads” with them, but were pretty vague on the day to day. I want to know about investment sales. Am I just a phone monkey? Is this a good place to start a career? This is the first time they are hiring for a position like this and I would be working directly under the 2 partners. The brokerage won a “power broker” award from costar in 2022 so I am assuming that’s good… any insight, tips, opinions, roasts, are appreciated!
most likely no. you’re most likely going to be an underpaid slave that doesn’t gain much technical skills
Why would this be the case?
Can you explain why I wouldn’t gain much technical skills?
Because it's a sales role - you'd be selling commercial real estate.
You’re a used building salesman. It can be incredibly lucrative at the top. Good teams are great training grounds. Just make sure it’s not Marcus & Millichap (unless it’s their IPA team).
For an active team- probably shouldn’t be a ton of cold-calling but maybe my market is different?
The analysts I know in brokerage are excel/ARGUS jockeys, not cold-calling.
Ya the company focuses on one MSA and most of the deals are about 12-15MM with one or two around 50MM.
I just want to make sure I don’t sign up for a cold calling festival. I know it’s parts of the job but if it’s all I’m doing Im not sure it’s great experience
I agree with your line of thinking. I’d definitely be skeptical if cold calling is your main function and the cold calling is going to be convincing owners to sell their property via a “free BOV”.
Red flag to me if the partners aren’t the ones out in the market interacting with owners/buyers and winning listings, with the analyst acting as the excel and BOV/OM grunt.
Big picture: if these guys win and close listings from companies you’d want to work at, it’s probably okay to take because the job market on the transaction side of CRE is absolutely non existent and you might not find better. If they are just convincing mom & pops to sell- be very hesitant.
This reminds me of when I applied to and got my first (and current) gig. I applied for a position as a Financial Analyst and it was under investment sales. I thought I would just be crunching numbers and I really had no idea I would be hawking other peoples shit. I really had no idea what numbers I would be crunching tbh. My position started out as an analyst, 50% of the time I would be modeling in Argus and excel and creating Broker Opinions of Value (BOVs) and Offering Memorandums (OMs). The other 50% of the times I would cold call buyers for deals we were selling. My boss or senior broker (MD or equivalent) ran the team and he would go out and get new business, so I was never in a position to get new business or warm leads, just sell what we had on the market. I had a decent salary starting out of college and discretionary bonus.
If you are at a Marcus and Millichap type shop you will mostly be cold calling trying to get listings and will likely have minimal underwriting. If you are at a JLL/Cushman type shop you will be on hopefully an established team with lots of deal flow and mostly be crunching the numbers and creating BOVs and OMs with occasional cold calling, depending on your team's size.
As far as what Investment Sales is, you are basically just selling investment grade real estate for a mix of institutional and private clients to institutional and private buyers. The difference between IS and general commercial real estate sales is the level of underwriting for each deal. A lot of general CRE Sales go to owner users, think small warehouse for tool and dye or auto shop, more smaller stuff vs IS is larger office buildings, retail centers, apartments etc. At the end of the day sales is sales and it is your job as a broker to tell the story of the property. In my opinion IS just uses a different medium to tell that story, the numbers.
My hunch is that it is more of Marcus and Millichap type brokerage. the 2 partners handle all of the work and want someone new to hammer the phones for them. Do you like your current job? How many hours a week do you work?
I was offered a low
Salary and commission split with the business I help bring in and they close. Is this normal?
I like my job enough, have always wanted to switch over to acquisitions. I don't think a lot of people get into real estate to hawk other people's shit, it kind of happens. I remember ice breakers in my RE classes in college everyone, including myself said "I want to get into development" lol. I work maybe 40 hours a week, at times it gets busy but our team has a great system and process. My team averages about 1.5MM in gross commissions per year. My comp now is a decent salary and a tiered commission structure similar to how a tax bracket works.
Yeah, I would say it is a normal structure. Just make sure you are getting paid on stuff you work on too, not just stuff you bring in (which would be pretty much zero when you start out). A lot of brokers can be real cocksuckers about splitting and sharing fees but they always have their hand out.
But it all depends on what you want to do with your career and you may not know that answer yet.
I like my job enough, have always wanted to switch over to acquisitions. I don't think a lot of people get into real estate to hawk other people's shit, it kind of happens. I remember ice breakers in my RE classes in college everyone, including myself said "I want to get into development" lol. I work maybe 40 hours a week, at times it gets busy but our team has a great system and process. My team averages about 1.5MM in gross commissions per year. My comp now is a decent salary and a tiered commission structure similar to how a tax bracket works.
Yeah, I would say it is a normal structure. Just make sure you are getting paid on stuff you work on too, not just stuff you bring in (which would be pretty much zero when you start out). A lot of brokers can be real cocksuckers about splitting and sharing fees but they always have their hand out.
But it all depends on what you want to do with your career and you may not know that answer yet.
Run you're gonna be dialing your number exit ops for this kind of jobs suck.
But I do know someone who did 3 months of a job similar and transitioned into a debt originations position
Is there anyone to know that this will actually be a good firm to consider?
At error numquam incidunt veniam. Debitis tempora non odit totam vel. Ab consequatur maxime quod est reprehenderit. Qui et iusto minus neque.
Fuga nam perferendis cum delectus amet sint. Eligendi nihil eveniet eum.
Nesciunt nihil earum autem atque. Eum labore maxime maxime ea esse dolor sit.
Odio repudiandae quia ut officiis quae cum odio. Omnis et ea nemo voluptatem at incidunt. Ullam sed autem tempore saepe et voluptatem voluptatem. Optio ut est veritatis perspiciatis et deserunt quod. Quam qui hic sunt rem. Rem temporibus nihil itaque iste autem. Maiores velit id dolores dolore dicta occaecati vero temporibus.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...