What skills are most valued in CRE?
Different industries require different skills. For example, if you're in Hollywood as an agent or actor you gotta be good with people. If you're a lawyer you gotta be detail-oriented, well-versed with politics and the law as well as being a good public speaker if you're a litigator.
That being said what skills should you have if you're thinking about a career in real estate? What would be the main skill you gotta have before you go into something like CRE Development, CRE Brokerage or REPE?
know your market and be sharp with numbers
This is too broad a question to answer definitively - the skill sets and personalities that typically are within a certain subset of the industry often are directly contradictory to the ones you need to succeed in others. The questions which will get you better answers if you are looking for guidance on how to refine your skills to match your goals are more along the lines of “What skill sets are important for success in real estate private equity, development at a large firm as a _____, etc”
An example of what I am referring to is a project accountant versus project manager at the same development firm. The skill set needed to likely succeed as the accountant in real estate is someone who is very detail oriented, understands numbers well, is willing to dig deep and thinks in a very structured and systematic way. The project manager on the other hand needs to be able to juggle many small issues on a daily basis while maintaining a high level view, can get by on a high level understanding of how certain decisions impact the budget, often only needs to process things on a surface level before delegating or passing off and has the advantage if they can think in a more creative way to solve difficult problems.
I am speaking as an analyst in REPE/development - each of the sub groups you mention has significant variation within them, it is a specialized world.
CRE Brokerage - Very localized knowledge is required. You need people skills/charisma, have energy, be in a good mood/happy disposition, this is sales, you need to know the market, stay in front of clients without being overbearing, the best ones will know how their clients think, what their clients sources of capital are, what their clients like, what their clients competition is doing, etc. CRE Development - Analytical, can maintain positive relationships, good leader, good organizer. REPE - Heavily analytical, big picture thinking, being really smart will get you by for the most part.
My people skills are pretty bad. I am all business. I am good at maintaining relationships and have few strong relationships, but I am not someone that likes to be around a lot of people, not the life of the party. However, I have a passion for investment and it shows at work. I am good at my job and enjoy looking at the big picture.
EDIT: come to think of it, the partner I work with is the same as me, maybe that's why he hired me.
Born with the right last name.
In Development, the #1 skill is accomplishing things/checking things off a list. There are a million moving parts and they all have various deadlines and they all depend on each other in some way and it can be paralyzing to sit and think about them. The people who succeed are the ones who push forward and accomplish what they need to.
I would also add that eternal optimism is another required trait of our developer partners.
^Absolutely this...A development deal would never get done if it was solely left to the discretion of the number guys
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