Prudential Real Estate Investors; Interview prep help

Good morning everyone.

I have an interview coming up with Prudential Real Estate Investors. I received this interview through networking. I don't have any experience in this field through an internship nor do I have any relevant coursework.

What should I expect in this interview? Mainly fit or very technical? Do you guys recommend any particular study guides?

I would appreciate it if you guys can give some pointers.

37 Comments
 

For acquisitions: they will send you a case study. You will be expected calc typical RE financial metrics and make a recommendation on pricing. If you do not have experience underwriting or putting together committee memos, you will most likely have a difficult time with the case. (Side note: case studies are becoming more and more of a standard practice among institutional RE investors).

For other roles: no idea.

I have a feeling you will be interviewing for more of a support role, rather than acquisitions. To my knowledge, PREI doesn't hire experienced candidates with no RE exp, unless its for a support role.

Man made money, money never made the man
 
RE Capital MarketsFor acquisitions: they will send you a case study. You will be expected calc typical RE financial metrics and make a recommendation on pricing. If you do not have experience underwriting or putting together committee memos, you will most likely have a difficult time with the case. (Side note: case studies are becoming more and more of a standard practice among institutional RE investors).

For other roles: no idea.

I have a feeling you will be interviewing for more of a support role, rather than acquisitions. To my knowledge, PREI doesn't hire experienced candidates with no RE exp, unless its for a support role.

Do you think case studies are also given out to potential undergraduate hires?

 
Penn7690
RE Capital MarketsFor acquisitions: they will send you a case study. You will be expected calc typical RE financial metrics and make a recommendation on pricing. If you do not have experience underwriting or putting together committee memos, you will most likely have a difficult time with the case. (Side note: case studies are becoming more and more of a standard practice among institutional RE investors).

For other roles: no idea.

I have a feeling you will be interviewing for more of a support role, rather than acquisitions. To my knowledge, PREI doesn't hire experienced candidates with no RE exp, unless its for a support role.

Do you think case studies are also given out to potential undergraduate hires?

Good question, I should have adressed that.

I would say...maybe.

The entry-level has been unusually competitive. Our fim's standard practice is to email a case study to candidates, which is typically above and beyond what an undergrad would know or have experience with (even with relevant internships). But we will get 2-5 candidates who will breeze through the material like they have done it before and the rest fumble through (also, fumbling does not constitute an auto ding, we try to be realistic with out expectations). We have the candidates walk us through their analysis (just in case they recieved any outside help) over the phone. The next step is another in-person case study (this time with basic Argus skills integrated) and the candidate has to present an investment to a "committee", which consists of our acquisitions staff. Most candidates fall apart at this point (again, this is mostly expected), but its great for the candidate if they can keep their cool and communicate effectively. Then we asses "fit" (taking the candidate out to lunch), which is mostly bullshit because at that point we are already comfortable with the candidate.

BUT, my firm has mostly phased out undergrad recruiting since 2008.

I would expect that other firms do require their candidates to go through the case study process becuase those firms usually target folks with at least some (ugrad and internship) exp. But I could be wrong.

Man made money, money never made the man
 

Thank you RE Capital Markets. I read the description for the posting again and it is indeed an 'Investment analyst' role.

This is part of the description "Analyze and underwrite investment decisions for leasing, financing, buy/sell scenarios including preparation of cash flow models, sensitivity tables, and property valuations, and joint venture structuring."

I am still looking for a solid study guide to get me up to speed. Any suggestions would be great.

 
Best Response

Here is some advice to prep for your Case Study should they make you do one:

  • be familiar with the 3 commonly accepted methodologies for valuing real estate: income approach (DCF), replacement coast approach and sale comps approach
  • know what a basic Operating Statement looks like
  • know how to calculate Net Operating Income
  • know how to calculate cap rate
  • know how how to calc cash-on-cash
  • know how to do all the above in Excel
  • familiarize yourself with Excel: vlookup, hlookup, sumif, sumproduct, date functions etc

That's all i can think of for now. Good luck.

Man made money, money never made the man
 
JimboUSC

Bump, anyone else got any info? A friend of mine has an interview coming up and wanted to know if there is anything to prep for? Is the interview more behavioral/technical?

Thx

Jimbo, shoot me a message with any specifics about position, location, etc. Might be able to give you some insight.

 
SHB

You wouldn't happen to be going for a debt originator position would you? A girl just left Pru that we worked with quite a bit. All I know is that she left Pru after 3 years and decided to take off 6 months in southeast asia while trying to get a position for an equity player to the money must have been good.

Wouldn't debt origination be with PMCC? I know PREI has a small debt platform but PMCC does originations in the billions.

 

My bad inspired on not getting back to your last message. I've been super busy with deals we're working on. As you know, I made it to the final round and was brought up to HQ to meet with the team. They narrowed it down to me and one other candidate, and unfortunately the other candidate had more experience than me (since I'm only 4 months out of school) so they went with the other candidate. I interviewed in-person with four people and they were mostly fit/personality/behavior questions with a couple questions on how I would go about valuing different properties and stuff like that.

Kind of disappointed because the director of the fund the position was in told me I did great and everyone liked me, it was just the other candidate having more experience.

 

I had pretty much the same experience that DK2345 had. All of the questions I had, both phone and in person, were mostly fit based. I can't recall getting any technical questions. The people that interviewed me all said they liked me, but unfortunately, I lacked experience at the time so they chose to go with someone else. I was really disappointed at the time since it seemed like an exciting opportunity but c'est la vie. Perhaps when I've gained more experience I can get another crack at it. Good luck on your interviews.

 

I once interviewed with these guys; they didn't hit me with any technicals, but they definitely asked about certain technical skills and specific experience I had.

 

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