I have read a lot of posts on this site stressing the importance of working on a solid team when it comes to starting your career in Investment Sales. Besides getting along with the brokers/looking at active listings and past deals online. What are some other good questions to ask and sources to look into to figure out how successful a certain brokerage team really is and if you would be a good fit?
Any advice is appreciated!
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Try to talk to people who were on their team and it didn't work out for some reason.
During my time in investment sales I saw guys who started with one team, struggled their whole first year, switched teams and found success and and are still doing well.
It also depends on the culture of the office and also the property type you'll be focusing on. I was with a large investment sales brokerage and the big dog in the office focused on multi-family. Since he was the biggest broker in the office he had a lot of sway with management, essentially any new guy who tried to do multifamily was slowly run out. In this particular instance it would have been much better for a new guy to start in STNL or something else.
Try to talk to people who used to work in that office and pick their brains. You should be able to find people who left and aren't in investment sales any more, and people who have changed brokerages and are still doing investment sales.
Good luck!!
Things I would look at / vet:
That's just a few things... there is more stuff I could add, but I'll let other folks chime in. I think there is a ton of value in starting in investment sales... if you start with the right folks. Avoid the two-bit hucksters from Marcus & Millichap.
Not sure why he got MS. Maybe a salty M&M guy. I'd definitely echo the first 3 points heavily as well as the last one. I don't think the support staff matters too much as I saw analyst spots given out simply because they were a client's kid. # of deals and average size, percentage of deals that are institutional vs. not, background the brokers came from, and flag (CBRE, JLL, Eastdil, CW, maybe HFF). The quality of these teams also varies greatly from market to market and between different asset types, so you'll want to find someone in your target market that can tell you which brokers are the best in their respective area.
Yeah certainly, I'd be happy to lend you my guidance. I used to work in investment sales and I know a lot of ultra-successful people doing who are consistently 7-8 figure producers regardless of cycles. Two questions first:
1) What part of the country are you located/interested in working in? What product/asset type are you interested in focusing on?
2) What exactly do you want to do within the context of brokerage? Do you want to be in a support/analyst/execution role? do you want to procure business?
3) What do you mean by 'good' ? Do you want to work for a big institutional-focused team that gets big (dollar value) assignments? Or do you just mean they make a ton of money? Not to say the two are mutually exclusive but generally speaking the former requires a must more exhaustive and labor-intensive staffing due to the quality and complexity of the work product. The margin on your time and real-dollars is generally lower.
1). How hungry are they? Can't overstate this. Sometimes guys coming up are hungrier than those who already made some money. Sometimes guys with a lot of experience in the general real estate business switch to brokerage and can't close a deal to save their life.
2) How good is their network? Some small shop guys have a niche and do great while a big shop team might have the brand but aren't experts in any market. Without leads you have nothing.
3) Cultural fit. Spend some time with these guys beforehand because you're going to be playing the game together and you need to compliment each other in both skill set and personality.
4) Do you plan to stay in the market as a broker at least ten years? If not don't even bother. It takes time to build pipeline and networks are very regional.
These are all based on mistakes I've made or friends have made.
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