Why Real Estate?

I got to real estate from all angles, it's an interesting story. When I was young I always loved houses and the design of houses, and I read about architecture. In high school I wrote a term paper on Frank Lloyd Wright, and for my senior project I worked with a local architect to learn how to put together architecture drawings. He was old school, he still did everything by hand and hired a dude to copy everything he drew into CAD. He showed me how to use a straight-edge and a French curve, how to lay out a kitchen and a bathroom, how to avoid plumbing in the exterior walls and how the exterior of the house lines up with the interior through the alignment of the windows. It was a fascinating experience, and I loved architecture in the abstract, but I knew I wouldn't want to be an actual architect.

So I went to get my degree in engineering, mechanical to be specific, I wanted to work in the auto industry. I was in love with cars (still am, but I no longer harbor pipe-dreams of working for Rolls Royce or Cadillac), but realized very quickly a) I wasn't as good of an engineer as the guys who worked for the big car companies, and b) I wasn't at a program that they recruited from (similar to finance, there are targets and non-targets, and my dinky engineering program was definitely a non-target). None of this is to say I wasn't a good engineer or I didn't learn a lot from my program, I just wasn't quite the technical whiz that the Big 3 demanded. Meanwhile, my roommate and best friend in college introduced me to finance since his father had been involved in high finance across a variety of functions for decades. I started reading the intro books everyone knows, Monkey Business, Liar's Poker, The Big Short, and all the Vault guides I could get my hands on. I wanted to change my major but most of my scholarship was for the school of engineering (besides, I did really enjoy studying engineering, I just knew I didn't want to be an engineer), so I studied on the side, got the books and took the CFA I (lol), and interviewed with hedge funds, mutual funds and AM shops. I got rejected from all of them, all saying I didn't have enough finance knowledge and they didn't want to spend the time to train me up (didn't they read my resume?). So I graduated and got a job in the industry I had my one internship in, construction, with the intention to get my MBA and transition to finance later on. 

I looked at a job in construction as a way to learn project management and the soft skills required working in business, I had the technical background, I knew I could do the math, but I needed to round out my experience. Construction was honestly a huge culture shock, I couldn't relate to anyone I worked with despite them all being around my age, and I fell into a depression for the first 3-4 months. But then I started working with an architect out of Chicago and we clicked from day 1, which made the job a lot easier. I got to learn so much about construction drawings, the construction process and how to work through issues. My engineering background helped not from any sort of technical aspect, but to develop a knack for understanding how to think abstractly about the physical world: taking two dimensional drawings of plans and elevations and converting it into an understanding of 3D space and how to resolve conflicts and issues. I continued in my career, getting raises and a promotion, but I still had my eye on an MBA. I took the GMAT, got a good enough score for a T-20 program, went to the school fairs and school presentations, applied super early (R1 after only my second year of employment) and got into my target school. At this point my goals had shifted from a pure finance role to real estate development, and I ended up matriculating with 2 years, 8 months of experience, starting my program at 24 years old. 

I was young and insecure about my seat at my MBA program, being surrounded by people with years more experience and far more knowledge about real estate finance than I did (I didn't even know what an IRR was), but I soon learned, taking modeling classes and all the real estate classes my school offered (which was a good amount, it's a school with a very good real estate MBA program). Along the way I took classes in art history (Survey of Western Art Pt 2: The Renaissance to Modernism, and Theories of Architecture), visited many architectural places of interest (Fallingwater, the Robie House, the Farnsworth House, and many buildings in LA, NYC, Chicago, Detroit, Paris, London, Berlin and Tel Aviv), and continued my interest in building technology, doing my masters thesis on 3D printed concrete. I had an internship with a CM and another with a real estate consulting firm, and eventually landed a full time job with a residential developer. After all that I finally got to where I wanted to be, I love the management part of development, I love working with architects on designing plans, working with interior designers to select FF&E, and working with the marketing team on our brand materials. I'm learning to love underwriting haha, but that is never going to be my core competency, so I'm content to let the analysts do the heavy lifting.

So long story short, I got involved in architecture, design, construction, and finance, and blended it all together for a career in real estate development.