Need Advice On Transition out of Investment Sales / Insight on buyside or Mortgage banking?
Apologies in advance for the long rambling post. Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated.
I am currently an analyst on a good investment sales team covering multiple asset classes with mostly institutional clients. I’ve had a lot of exposure to underwriting, conducting tours, attending pitches, and interfacing with lots of well-known investor clients (many of the major PE funds, REITs, life cos, etc.)
My goal throughout my time here was either to transition to being a broker within my firm or make the jump to the principal side. I learned pretty quickly that broker route wasn’t a great fit for me due to how shmoozy it is, and I’m pretty bored with the repetition of the investment sales process. Unfortunately, there are very few clients/buyside firms located in my city (I am not in NYC), so it hasn’t been easy finding opportunities to jump to the principal side. Even if I did have the opportunity, I’m still not sure if an acquisition/asset management role is necessarily the best fit. I know acquisitions is seen as the “holy grail” of RE jobs on WSO, but I still see it as pretty shmoozy and involving a lot of the same repetition as investments sales except 95% of the time you don’t even get to see the process through because you are outbid. I also don’t love the idea of working for a major owner and spending half my time on airplanes flying all over the country to try and acquire or manage some suburban class B renovation project 45 minutes outside Kansas City or whatever.
So basically here is what I think I am looking for: an analytical RE job that involves a decent amount of sales/relationship stuff but doesn’t feel too much like being a used car salesman. Also would prefer to focus more locally on my current city and become a true regional expert rather than have to fly all over covering 10+ cities and live in hotels without ever really becoming on expert on any of them.
I think the obvious choice would be to work with a local operator who invests in this area but partners with major institutions. The only downsides I see to this are 1) I may have to wait a while for a position to open up and 2) the pay will probably be less than what I make now.
Another idea I’ve been considering is transitioning to mortgage banking. There are a handful of big mortgage banks / DUS lenders in my market that do a lot of volume. While this isn’t the principal side, I see this as an opportunity to have a nice balance between analytical/relationship work, focus on my region, and make some good $$$.
So my questions would be: Do you think local operator or mortgage banking are my two best options? Any other recommendations? Can anybody who has left investment sales and/or has experience in either of these roles shed some light on the pros/cons I may be missing? Are my compensation assumptions correct? Am I a complete idiot?
Thank you in advance.
Hi Its Free Real Estate, whoops, looks like nobody chimed in here.... maybe one of these discussions below is relevant:
Any pros willing to rescue this discussion? BlueDevilCRE abundando cameron1692
You're welcome.
bump
I can't think of a harder job than being a CRE/multifamily mortgage banker. It's highly relationship-focused (which, yes, is sales) but winning actual deals is often out of your control--if the lender you work for doesn't have the right product or pricing for your client then you aren't going to win the deal--it is what it is. On the other hand, if you're working for a DUS lender, for example, you'll have the same products as everyone else, so you'll need to distinguish yourself by your customer service, your personal relationship with the customer, or by your team's competence, which is often out of your control, too.
The only way to make the big bucks in this business is to get out of the office or to have a close partner that gets out of the office and sells, while you bring something else to the team that he or she lacks.
And one thing to remember about Acquisitions, in any capacity....big shop or small shop, you have to sell just as hard and the Investment Sales Guys, if not harder. Just in a different way.
As a first year guy, you are most likely going to be doing exclusively DCF models, but as you build your network and contacts, you will realize that you have to go out and network, cold call property owners to sell/ entertain offers, meet with brokers, and get a network of them that will send you deals. Sounds easy, but if you look at 60 deals, maybe 1 has the potential to be an acquisition based on whether or not you can get your hat in the ring as a buyer.
This is what I was thinking too. I still think I'd prefer the sales aspect of acquisitions more than brokerage, but I'm definitely not "acquisitions or bust" in my job hunt. I think asset management or a hybrid acq/AM role is probably preferable.
I agree. I prefer the acquisitions process as well. And I have been in both
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