Development Analyst (affordable)

I’ve heard the upside is high once established. What’s the comp like?

Affordable shops will likely pay slightly less and work slightly less. This depends on a number of factors, of course. Pay will be much lower than PE and lower than REPE. I would say the work is less stimulating/fun in affordable because the deals take FOREVER. If you are working with FHA for financing, doing LIHTC, or any of the state/city programs, you will have a lot of DD and paperwork to do. Depending on the setup, you may do essentially zero modeling because the rents are guaranteed by the government, so no need for comps etc. From the banking side, the affordable divisions are always the biggest snooze fest. However, there is a lot of money to be made if you can successfully navigate the bureaucracy (for the investors).

You will be able to exit to regular MF fairly easily, however the longer you stay, the harder it will be to exit to a non-affordable MF developer. If it is a well known shop, you will have better exit ops, but if it is a not well known institution, you'll be more pigeon-holed than if you worked for a well-known bank/broker working across all asset classes. You won't be pigeonholed to the point that you MUST do affordable or the rest of your life, but it may be difficult to lateral and have your previous years of experience count towards your title at the new firm. 

I wouldn't worry about being pigeonholed, or at least any more than you would be anywhere else.  As someone mentions down-thread, if you want to transition to building office buildings, you might find yourself at a competitive disadvantage with someone who had been doing that for the same amount of time - but the reverse is true, too.  That's life.  From a high level standpoint, any development experience is a net positive and will position you better than being on, say, an investment sales team, for almost any role (other than IS).

Hours are pretty easy.  Once you get right up against a closing, especially a construction closing, you'll get jammed.  Those weeks you might be working til midnight for a handful of days in a row, but other than that it's flexible.

Pay varies on shop (obviously, not as standardized as banking) and is probably worse at a junior level than PE.  Not entirely sure what junior folks in REPE make.  The major upside is that development shops, by the nature of their chunky cash flows, are often eager to offer carry pretty early on in order to reduce biweekly overhead.  Also, in affordable in particular, you have a very easy and very quick (relatively speaking) route into starting your own firm.  It really doesn't take much to go out on your own, the barrier to entry isn't capital but relationship and regulation oriented.  Generally speaking, I'd advise that choosing a starting point in real estate based on pay is an extremely shortsighted move.  Your goal should be to maximize carry in the medium to long term.

I think the work is fascinating, and frustrating, for all the same reasons.  Affordable housing is by far the most complex asset type to finance (bar unique projects) - you've got to combine a number of sources which just don't exist in other asset classes.  Our projects routinely have several layers of debt, a couple different types of tax credits, some form of equity, etc.  And because all of this is tied into federal/state/local regulatory oversight, the modeling is actually fairly complex.  Far more so than what I see my peers at funds working on, for all that their underwriting models look more professional.  Beyond that, you deal with city officials, local electeds, community boards, you need to be at least conversant with the architects, engineers, subs, etc.  You need to be silver at everything, not gold at a few (a phrase I used somewhere else and still like lol).  That range means there is always something to learn, and frankly, that stuff is widely applicable within real estate.  Knowing how to model AFR into your debt tab is great, but as mentioned, an office developer won't give a shit if you want to transition.  Being able to read construction plans and at least follow along as your team value engineers a set of construction drawings?  That's a value add in any real estate development shop.