Fellow Canadian breaking into CRE here. Been noticing a lot of CRE openings requiring the AACI designation. Would you say it's more important that CFA? If you had to rank importance of CFA, experience with ARGUS or AACI, how would you rank these 3?
I noticed that some people are pursuing the UBC/AIC Post-Graduate Certificate in Real Property Valuation Program (PGCV) as well. Would love to get some opinions of how these rank or the importance in Canada for breaking into CRE!
Thanks in advance!
Hi there,
It depends on what you want to do in CRE. I’m currently a 2nd year Analyst at a commercial valuations firm and working towards the AACI designation. PGCV is a stepping stone to the AACI as you would first work towards fulfilling the course requirements of PGCV, which are the same as the AACI in terms of the education component. They’re both completed through the University of British Columbia’s Real Estate Division. I would say AACI is important as it demonstrates that you have a strong foundation of valuing commercial properties and understanding how the value is derived and what would affect the value. With that said however, you don’t ‘need’ a designation to show that. I would say the only job function in the industry that requires the AACI is the appraisal side as it is the standard designation (like the CPA for accountants). I can’t comment much about the CFA in real estate. I know some people who are working towards it and they’re on the investment side of things. It’s also been mentioned in other threads in WSO that CFA is not as applicable to real estate as it is to finance.
Honestly for real estate, I think experience trumps everything (unless you want to be an appraiser, then get the AACI). Argus is the standard program used to model CF and is not challenging to pick up. Hope this helps! Feel free to DM me for more info.
Wow. Thanks a lot! Somehow I missed this in my notifications but I will definitely DM you.
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