About the only way to break in to IB with no finance experience is to go back to bschool full time to take advantage of the OCR (for the record I know it is possible to transition part time...just tough). I am looking in to a career change to CRE from current 6 years experience in logistics at a F500 company. I'm still working through the various paths, but curious what it would take to land an associate role at an acquisitions or development firm. Is the full time necessary?
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For a acquisition/development role? Ignoring an outside .1% chance the answer is yes you will need to go to business school.
BUT
If you work for a logistics company you probably know supply chain logistics as it relates to real estate is incredibly hot right now. Top industrial brokerage teams (both IS and leasing) have people who are solely focused on consulting with logistics companies to help with site selection or promotion (depending on the assignment), creating detailed cost benefit analysis considering work force demographics, tolls, time, hauling costs, port container fees, etc, etc that helps tenants find the right site for them or helps landlords promote their site. You may have a way into RE that way and from there who knows what given enough time.
.1% ? I agree that it will be tough but come on now.
Development/acquisitions definitely doable with enough hustle. My dev company has considered candidates in their 30s with experience in unrelated industries. These candidates showed a massive amount of interest in the industry and were all around smart, curious people who we thought could be brought up to speed in a few years. Pull a Good Will Hunting and teach yourself as much about the industry as possible.
You might have to start at the ground floor and take a pay cut though.
I disagree but hey, its the internet, it happens.
I will say I feel there is a pervasive and unhelpful mentality throughout WSO that networking and "hustle" solves all problems. I'm just trying to be real. The best chance for a 28 year old to change industries completely (especially looking for highly coveted equity placement positions) is to get an MBA. Hell there are countless posts of people with 6 years of RE AM experience who cant get into acq positions.
Yes there is a chance but not one that I would be willing to put money on.
If you are thinking CRE, you could do a part-time (or full-time) MSRE or MRED, generally less expensive and far better in terms of actually learning CRE. If you are dead set on an MBA, I don't think FT vs. PT makes that big of a difference when you have as much work experience as you do.
Your path will not likely through a traditional analyst/associate path. As others have said, if you stay within the industrial logistics realm, you may be very valuable (not my area to be judge to be fair). You may want to consider corporate real estate, would be an obvious transition path. Industrial brokerage or consulting are also more open to people with various types of experience. Development is also possible, but more competitive (I think the grad degree may be more required, at least for the big/corp type development firms).
Remember, if you go looking at small/medium shops, the whole "MBA" thing melts away very quickly. If you are committed, you can make the transition.
Thanks for the insight. As of right now, I am still a little confused on the acquisitions piece. Can you help me understand high level what the lay of the land looks like? It just seems a little different than developers where I know there's smaller, local companies as well as the bigger ones: Hines, Prologis, Trammel...It sounds like in acquisitions there's small "family" shops, and REIT's (which can also be small or large?), and then it sounds like REPE is an option (which may fall under "small family shop" aforementioned).
I'm not entirely sure I understand the question. There are firms with portfolios of all sizes in every category of real estate owner. Here is short list of the categories -
Instit/Pension. Real Estate Investment Managers - PGIM, MetLife, Nuveen, etc. REPE - Blackstone, KKR, etc. (and tons of small ones everywhere) REITs - Prologis, Simon, Boston Prop (small REITs too, like Bluerock Resi) Private RE Firms - Tishman Spyer, RXR, Silverstein (millions of small ones here of course)
Of course many raise their own money, partner directly with large investors (like CalSTERs), or use the money of the REPEs to do deals. The Life Cos are special in that they invest for their own account and increasingly have third party platforms (like USAA or PGIM).
Does that help? I think its better to target a job function/industry specialty, where you work is secondary.
you could possibly look to join a strong development lender with lots of volume and pivot from there. key points here would be to constantly walk construction sites, get to know some developers / LP equity investors / engineers / architects / GC's / brokers / asset managers, learn to read plans, underwrite deals lights out, model your own DCF's, measure market product trends in MULTIPLE markets, network in the industry and try to pivot from there. I would join ULI or a similar development-focused group too.
A MBA is valuable but the RE industry emphasizes work experience and deal experience probably more than most other industries, and since you don't yet have industry experience maybe this is an option. Or maybe you combine an MBA with some work experience either now or later to shore up the difference. They say an MBA is a 4-year process.. 2 years for the degree.. 2 years for that first job after then degree.. then onward and upward after that.
I agree with the earlier post about industrial / warehousing angle. Your background lines up with that product type the best of any.
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