How to break Into REIT Acquisitions/Dispositions

It's respectable, just the name isn't huge. It was formerly a brokerage/property management platform attached to a large institutional REIT. Not sure if that helps my case at all.

bolo up:

Are any of your firm's clients REITs that you would be interested in working for? Building relationships with people on the deal team through actual deals that you work on together would be a pretty easy way to become a known commodity (and hopefully become aware when an opening arises). This might not be true of the biggest REITs in the big markets, but for the most part, deal teams are pretty small and openings are going to be filled on an as-needed basis.

To answer your questions: (1) See above. Network with people who are on the teams you are looking to join. If not through work, join industry groups, find people on linkedin and buy them coffee, etc. (2) Can be very competitive. As I said above, not a lot of positions so they can often be filled by internal hires (xfers from AM, corp finance, etc). Or though existing connections of members of the deal team (see #1) (3) Definitely need to know excel. Depending on how the REIT is capitalized, you might not be looking at secured debt or JVs so the modelling can be pretty simplistic, but I would be comfortable with some more complex excel modelling in case (given the choice between two otherwise identical analysts I'm going to hire the modelling wizard). ARGUS can be an expectation too, depending on product type (office & retail should use it for sure). Ultimately ARGUS is a tool and if you understand what it should be doing really well, then figuring out how to use it shouldn't take you more than a few days. Maybe not "skills" but I would be very familiar with the firm, their investment strategy and the market that they are playing in. This is true of any company/industry you'd like to work in, but SO much easier with REITS since you can find out a ton about what is going on inside of the company through public filings. REITs disclose a ton of public information beyond just their accounting filings. Read their investor presentations, listen to their execs speak at industry events (can usually find these on their website or just google it) and get a good idea of what they are trying to do and what issues they are facing in market. IE: apartment landlord dealing with overbuilding of class-a product in gateway markets, retail landlord reposititioning their centers in lifestyle/experiential mold, etc. Look to deals they have done recently and be able to speak at least somewhat intelligently about them. If I'm taking a call from a jr. guy who wants to work on my team, I'm going to be much more impressed if he can ask me good questions about a deal I've recently done, rather than just ask me about my opinions on the death of retail.

To answer your question briefly I have not made any significant connections with any of our clients. To give a realistic view on my role, I'm typically limited to back office work on larger deals(pricing analysis's, finding comps, reaching out for simple items). My senior just wouldn't trust me to run with any deals yet as I would be more likely to kill a deal than create one. Deals that I get more freedom with are usually smaller deals $1.5 million and below, then I usually have more contact with clients and the transactions are obviously far less complex.

We do have relationships with some relatively decent sized REIT's and we do occasionally get your $10 million+ portfolios to work on so I can speak a little on these. Now I'm not trying to make myself seem useless I'm just trying to set the proper expectations so any further advice I receive is realistic. My "mentor" so to speak was the head of dispositions for a relatively decent sized retail REIT for the vast majority of his career (reasons why I thought this position would be great to learn in) so I feel as though he potentially had more insight into what the institutional's were looking for.

I am REFM certified level 1 and could likely get certified level 2 within two weeks or (If pertinent) even have access to level 3 if need be. I'm not sure what types of models or how far into my excel skills I would need to be but I am sure I can brush up on it if needed. To be honest I have no ARGUS experience as that's something that we never used outside of our D+I platform. I am a "hustler" so to speak and am really just looking for a challenge, I feel like I have one foot out the door but just can't get all the way through. Keep the advice coming...