Career thoughts. What would you do?
TLDR:
In my position--going into a part-time, 2-year MS in real estate program (Georgetown) with the desire to get placed into a senior real estate development/acquisitions role post graduation--would you stay in a "front office" role at a well known but less prestigious firm or take a very boring "middle office" role at a hyper-prestigious CRE firm, all else being equal with hours, compensation, and location?
My Situation:
So, I've currently got about 7 years of post-baccalaureate work experience, virtually all in real estate, with firms similar to Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, Wells Fargo Multifamily Capital/Centerline Capital, and a generic large, regional bank, and I develop residential real estate with my family. I'm currently working at a large, regional, well known depository bank that is well known to specialize in commercial lending (particularly commercial real estate, but also business lending). I'm a senior analyst that specializes in underwriting CRE deals.
I'm starting the MS in real estate program at Georgetown in August (specializing in real estate development), which is a part-time, 2-year program with pretty good recruiting/placement. An opportunity has come up at a hyper prestigious CRE group--think on the prestige level of Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML)--that offered me a senior analyst position in their debt portfolio Asset Management group with a 5% pay boost in the same building in which I currently work. I've done debt portfolio asset management before and it was painfully boring and I knew I didn't want to make a career out of it and I felt like people in CRE didn't respect it the way they respect the more production-heavy, "front office" analyst roles; however, I'm seriously considering this offer because of the extremely high prestige of the group. With the firm's name on my resume come MS graduation time, I thought maybe that would help in recruiting for senior RE development/acquisition roles.
Thoughts?
I am still in undergrad, but what I have learned in my CRE internship is that prestige doesn't really matter in this industry. If you don't want to be in Asset Management in the long run and know you will hate it I personally wouldn't say prestige and a 5% pay bump are worth the suffering.
7 years of experience and you're still a senior analyst? also, 5% pay bump for a lateral is definitely nothing to get excited about.
Unless you're are talking about a role at BREDS I really don't think there are many "hyper prestigious" commercial real estate debt mgmt roles, especially not at a bank (including goldman and MS). I would stick with front office, keep getting actual deal experience, go to business school and parlay that into an associate role on the buyside.
Yeah, I'm in a senior analyst role that requires at least 5 years of experience, and I was hired last year with about 5 1/2 years of experience. I'm my $7+ billion institution's lead real estate analyst. There are people with 20+ years of experience and prestigious MBAs that specialize in number crunching. There aren't that many roles in real estate outside of origination, number crunching, and construction/project management. Where exactly should I be? Love to hear your opinion on where I should be...
What kind of joker starts out their post saying with "you're still a senior analyst?" There are many senior analyst positions that require 5+ years of experience at some great firms. In my opinion I would stick to what you are interested in. If you think the BOA job would be mind numbingly boring I would discard the prestige factor. This is cliché but do what you have a genuine interest in and you will be better off.
Many people are misguided. They read posts on WSO saying that the career path goes something like the path below. More times than not, this is not feasible or realistic. Analyst – 2 Years Associate 2-3 years VP – 3-4 Years MD - 30 years old
DCDep. I’ve read on other posts that you were on the fast track of becoming an EVP/Chief Credit Officer by the time you’re in your 30s. That path sounds more interesting that AM. What are your true long term career goals?
Luckily you are in a master’s program and it sounds like you have a great job now. You have some time to really figure it out before graduation.
Debt portfolio Asset Management sounds like it could be a dead zone. Unless you're in a restructuring group working out problem loans, I'd stay away.
Yeah, I'm starting to see a pattern with these responses, and I guess I tend to agree.
My goal is to complete the MS program, get a development/acquisitions job (or possibly a bank credit officer job) with a steady and good paycheck while continuing to develop real estate on the side. My goal is to complete a few more real estate deals/developments (and as we all know "a few deals" = up to 5 years) and go out on my own, raising an equity fund and developing real estate, with the ultimate goal of doing it full time if I can get enough funds and enough deals in the pipeline.
Didn't mean to come off as condescending with the senior analyst comment. sounds like you have established yourself as a lender (and a fairly specialized lender at that with your agency experience). If you ultimately want to raise your own capital/start a fund imo you would be better off using grad school to get a role on the equity side in development. The credit officer job wouldn't offer much in the way of further development and only further pigeonhole you.
As a CRE guy myself, you've definitely got a great path that one could be envious of. The whole prestige argument is tough with CRE as others have said. It's all about the work you've done, not where you did it. It's all the same at the end of the day.
Personally, I'd take the job with the biggest check because you're ultimately planning your move to your own development shop, not to keep working up the corporate ladder. Keep the relationship with the more prestigious group if they aren't offering the larger salary, my guess they aren't since it's not FO so to speak. Don't do the boring job that you know you will hate. Makes it a lot tougher to stick it out for the checks, which is essentially what you are working for at this point.
I'd grow a pair and quit working for the man
kidding but not really, i'd try to work for a developer and forget about banking.
I didn't say it was mortgages at BOA. I said it was a real estate group as prestigious as Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which is fundamentally different from Bank of America. What you're saying is like saying investment banking at Wells Fargo Securities is as prestigious as mortgage loan originating at Wells Fargo Bank.
I think you need to stop talking. This is a pretty interesting thread even from outside the field and your trolling attempts are spectacularly unfunny and thus a complete waste of time.
I can't really comment on the importance of prestige in RE but the combination of needing as much money to raise a fund as possible and the actual skills/experience probably trump whatever association you might get with that firm you have an offer from.
Actually BOAML does the balance sheet lending for BOA, we do vanilla mortgages with them all the time. Basically 15M and up.
Jesus f*cking Christ. I didn’t know it was humanly possible for people to get so lost in the weeds. I was using BAML as a goddamn proxy for the organization I was talking about. This thread has NOTHING to do with BAML—AT ALL.
Even so, it takes a 2 second google search to see that BAML does WAY more than mortgage lending. They are a large, sophisticated lender and service provider—they are a real estate investment bank (raising debt and equity) and do a lot more than that. BOA could spin BAML off into its own company and it would be one of the largest and most diverse financial institutions in the world.
My original point—firm I was talking to is very well known and is well respected in the financial services community. Job I was offered was a horesh*t job. That was it. The continued (failed) attempts in this thread of “one-upsmanship” are utterly ridiculous.
The group issues debt (senior and junior, largely secured but some unsecured), places debt (junior and senior), raises equity, issues and places mezzanine financing, develops real estate on its own behalf, consults, conducts valuations and market studies, and does business internationally and domestically. This particular job happens to be managing one of its debt portfolios. As I plainly stated, the job isn't prestigious but the organization is. Did you plainly read that? That was the cornerstone of me starting this thread--job role is not prestigious but firm is extremely prestigious. Does it make sense to swap out a more prestigious job function at a less prestigious organization for a less prestigious job role at an extremely prestigious organization?
I just think it would be good if, for once, people didn't talk out of their asses before commenting. So far it's happened twice in this thread.
For what it's worth, I declined the job yesterday. I concluded that the organization's reputation still did not justify the move into the role.
Haha I just read this thread, don't let a bunch of undergraduate interns comments get to you! I think you did the right thing by sitting tight. Your going to make large time committments being back in school which will make starting a new job a pain in the ass. I've been working full-time and enrolled in a part-time real estate masters program over the last 1.5 years and its taken WAY more time than I wouldve imagined.
It may be tough from a title perspective to jump from a senior analyst to senior development/acquisitions role (VP/director) without having an inside tract to a firm. Most groups will want to hire you as an associate and make you prove yourself for a year or two. If you disagree I'd love to hear some examples or other angles.
If I was you, I would network my ass off for 1 year, and then try and lockdown a summer associate role at a large REPE, REIT, or development firm the summer before you graduate. Yes, I'm reccomending quitting your stable job for a paid internship. This sounds risky (b/c it is), but given that your in a part-time program this could be a strategic move to get good exposure and decide if you want to take the LP or GP path.
I know you say you declined the offer, but even though it was boring it may have offered a good opportunity to take a full course load and get A's in the classes because you would have more time to devote. Not that its unmanageable, but it is def a lot of work. Also, if it's a huge name company, I feel like you could spin 'asset manager at xyz bank' any way you want. From your history and experience, plus the degree, I would imagine it won't be too difficult to network your way into the development position you really want. Best of luck.
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