A little background - Non target state school undergrad, good GPA, 1 year non relevant work experience in finance, secondary midwest market.
Recently started at a mid market commercial bank in their (large) Real estate Loan portfolio asset management group. I am curious about exit opps from this position to potentially balance sheet side asset management, or something bottom totem pole of dev or acquisition. I viewed this job as a good way to break into CRE with no experience, but after reading multiple posts on these forums I am now worried this isn't as possible.
Is this not viewed as good CRE experience, or at least usable/applicable experience? Is there a trail someone has blazed or is on that I can work towards to move to bigger $ and responsibility down the road? It seems like to me since this is still asset management it wouldn't be that uncommon to transition from Loan portfolio asset management to another form of buy side asset management, even if it required lateral/downward career moves.
Also curious if becoming proficient in argus/excel on the side or an MBA would be considered helpful?
Any opinions/advice would be greatly appreciated!
bump
Definitely want to work on becoming proficient in modelling in ARGUS and excel - pretty much required skills were looking for in an analyst.
Do you mind expanding a bit on what your day-to-day includes/what skills you are gaining at this job? Having some good sounding experience on your resume can get you a 1st round interview, but skills that you are developing at that job are going to make the difference if you are looking to jump to acq. or dev.
Thanks for the response. That confirms that I was thinking I would need to become proficient in ARGUS and excel, which unfortunately to this point I won't be getting on-the-job experience.
To be honest, I just started the position so I'm not sure exactly what "skills" I'll learn - but I know that the job will end up being asset management - traveling to multifamily properties and doing inspections, assigning credit ratings based off of cash flows and some operating statements and ratios, although not doing the deep dive portion of the credit review. I'll be working directly with property managers and borrowers as well from what I understand and doing a lot of the loan servicing tasks.
I think that I'm pretty good in an interview setting and wouldn't mind going to a more sales/client based CRE position down the road, just unsure about the experience I'll be getting at this point. Thanks for any more insight you can give!
Sounds like this is really good experience. So are you exclusively working with multifamily? If so, is goal to remain in multifamily when you transition to principal side?
From a modeling perspective, I've never come across anyone who uses argus for multifamily, so I would focus more on learning excel modelling. (check out adventuresincre.com - I think that he has some good basic tutorials on apartment modelling; if not, there are a ton of good resources in these forums).
Otherwise, I would focus on building your network. It sounds like you will have some exposure to ownership which should serve you well from (a) knowing people who you'd potentially like to work for and (b) gives you an opportunity to work with them and understand how ownership is looking at the assets. You never know where your next opportunity is going to come from so just try to cast a wide net and get your name out there as much as possible. As far as skills/knowledge to pick up, outside of modelling I would just focus on trying to learn as much as possible, and specifically trying to keep it framed as "what is important to the investor/owner of this property." I started off in Big 4 valuation, so I worked with a lot of people who got lost in the minutiae - these were the guys who didn't make an easy transition to the principal side.
Interned for a year in RE Loan Servicing/Asset Management. Leveraged that into buy side AM job.
Sounds like you'll get good on-site experience and learning about debt I think is a really valuable skill.
Long winded answer, here...
This seems like a good starting point out of school. Some of the portfolio management job descriptions seem wayyy too accounting/operations (all AP/loan servicing and on-boarding, quarterly/annual reporting, interfacing with the Controller, etc.). Some are more of a blend (those previous examples plus site visits, long term strategic plan for each asset, cash flow projections, etc.). However, too long in a role like this (as I'm currently seeing personally) might peg you as that person forever.
I'd just make sure you ask the right questions and really get a good understanding of what the job is and where it could lead once you get more settled. Also, personally I wouldn't be afraid to be vocal about your goals. I turned down a job because it was pegged to be only accounting/portfolio management and there was zero cross-over to other groups. The shop was small, so it wasn't a MM/BB bank where I was still getting some good exposure all around. Obviously you're there, so there's no harm in asking your boss to try and gain more skills or exposure to modelling etc. Even if it's not a core part of your job, it looks good on the resume and you could truthfully answer the question if asked during a future interview. If they say no, you kind of have your answer as to how they view the upward trajectory of the role.
Curious what became of your situation, nbuch?
Ut culpa quo ex sapiente. Dicta iste ea blanditiis facere sit. Nihil eaque quia quam a non minus fuga. Facere magnam iure id.
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