RE / REPE - What is your typical day to day like?

I thought it would be cool if guys here can give their "day in the life" from 9am to whenever of a typical day for them at their current role/company.

I think it would be great for inexperienced guys like myself to see what is like formguys here from development to brokerage to REPE do on a daily basis.

 

I'm an associate at a large family office...

7:30 - Arrive at the office, grab some coffee and starting working on things on my current to-do list. I usually reserve my mornings for work that requires deeper focus, modeling, legal document review, investment memo preparation, etc.

10:00 By this time I usually check in with my manager and see what deals or projects he is working on. I try my best to make sure we are both on the same page with any projects or deliverables I have been working on. Now is a good time for us to review models, or investment memos I've put together before sending them out to our IC. If I'm not catching up with my manager, I'll usually have a few phone calls that I need to make. Usually it has to do with checking in on the progress of our development investments or some kind of monthly asset management call for fund investments. Once a week or so I'll have a due diligence call on an opportunity I'm working on.

11:00 continue working on hard deliverables (models, memos, legal docs, etc.)

12:30 I try to get lunch with other people in the industry at least 2 times a week. If I'm not grabbing lunch with someone else I usually just eat at my desk.

1:00 Run to some internal meetings. Our tax group wants to meet and discuss the sale of a few assets I'm working on. They have very specific tax questions and I connect them with their tax counterpart at our sponsor. Maybe legal counsel wants to talk about some of the finer deal points in a operating agreement I'm working on. I also use the afternoon to do market research to understand if I should be pitching a new market, asset class, or strategy to our IC.

2:00 Sit in on another monthly asset management call for a fund

3:00 Call a broker to pick his brain on one of our asset's valuation and if there have been any developments in the market since the last time we spoke. Tell him our timeline for selling an asset he has been asking about for at least 2 years.

4:00 Meet with a member of our IC to get him up to speed on few deals we have under management. One deal has a lot of complexities relating to its financing and it has led to almost weekly meetings. We also discuss some deals that are in our pipeline and what appetite we might have for them. I always try to understand the motivations for all the different members of our IC. They all have different pain points and it's crucial to have a working knowledge of those.

5:00 Respond to any emails or calls that I've missed throughout the day. Also, I try to get any hard deliverable that I was working on to a good stopping point before I head out the door.

5:30 (ish) head home. I'll generally respond to emails as necessary after this point, but unless I am working on a closing I try to head out of the office by 6:00.

This is a rough overview of a typical day. Some days I have no meetings and tons of time to work on my hard deliverables and other days I spend 8 hours in meetings or on calls. There really isn't an "average" day.

 

On 90% of our deals we are the LP Capital so we aren't doing a ton of heavy lifting on most of our deals. We do own a handful of our favorite assets directly, so I still have to worry about capital budgets, sit on leasing calls, etc.

We are a bit of a unique family office. We are 100% self funded so we have no outside investors to report to.

Our Focus Includes

Property Type: Office, multifamily, retail (limited), industrial, hospitality, senior housing, student housing, single family, land, and self storage.

Investment Strategy: Development, value-add, core-plus, core, structured debt

Geography: Nationwide with limited international opportunities

 

Associate at large fund in NYC. Multifamily equity/pref/mezz/debt.

Typical travel day, this was my last biz trip in dec. I travel a lot so figured I'd share the road life - its a big part of my role on the buyside.

Thursday, 430AM - wake up and hop in uber to Kennedy. No traffic at this hour, ever.

6AM - Take off on the JFK-LAX transcon flight. Immediately fall asleep in the flatbed once airborne. Touring MBS pool collateral in Vegas later this morning. Yes, they do have a direct flight and no I am not taking it because the NY-LA flights have flatbeds and they make all the difference in the world when you fly 150k miles a year. This will be my 26th transcon flight this year.

9AM (PST) - land. Go shower at LAX because I have a 30 minute layover en route to Vegas

1130 AM - Grab a car and head out to tour deals. Today I have 5 tours where I drive each market and tour a deal with management. Meet up with some minority partners who also want to tour, we hit a deal an hour and finish by 5.

6PM gym

7PM empty the 4 beers in the minibar while catching up on emails and model revisions from the analysts

830PM - Take a consultant (who is working with us on the deal) to swanky restaurant in the cosmo and talk shop. He's getting annihilated at his firm, so I sympathize.

10PM - walk around some hotels. I don't feel like hitting tables so I show consultant around.

12AM - Sleep

next day

7AM- Gym, hungover

9AM - 5 more tours of almost identical deals in the MBS pool. It's repetitive

1230AM - Call IC members and complain how one of the assets is complete dogshit, and that we should kick it from any pool

3PM - fly to LA , stay with sidechick and expense her dinner (cheaper than hotel). Spend weekend at the beach and grab a sunday redeye back to NYC. Go directly to work monday.

 

God dam dude your life sounds like every movie about a business man who's so set in his routine of travel, alcohol, and women. No offense.

 

I'm an analyst.

07:45 - Always first one in office, together with some of the development team. Instantly write to-do list.

08:00 - Usually work on models and drafting of OMs etc. the entire noon.

12:00 - Grab lunch to get back to my desk

12:30 - Start on easy stuff like research/presentations/adjustments on models

12:30 - 20:00 - Constantly checking my mails, doing more research/modelling/drafting of OMs/Bid Letters. Calling brokers on more info. Reading the news.

19:30 - 20:00 head home :)

On later days I get home around 21:00-22:00.

 
Best Response

Uncensored version. Assuming a non-travel/tour/event day:

8:30 - Get into the office. Before getting into the elevator, have an awkward conversation with security guard who is very nice but a little strange - for some reason has taken a liking to me. On a bad day, others get into the elevator and stop on every floor - the 5th floor always smells like microwaved Indian food.

8:45 - Read some news articles/check the markets/interest rates, etc. - Read emails from night before, make sure no shit has hit the fan.

9:00 - if live deals are going on, finish any DD/financial review/tedious legal stuff/3rd party report review, etc. If no live deal going on, make calls to brokers for any new deals/OM's, or start working on underwriting/tweaks to any deals we are evaluating/kicking around.

10:00 - if boss is in office, will have probably already spoken to him briefly, or if on road, will usually call around this time to check in. Will follow up with any tasks accordingly (call PM's, leasing brokers, IS brokers, asset managers, research analysts, look at some comps, write up an investment brief for committee, check work of xyz analyst, etc). Then delegate as many things as possible.

11:30 - Daydreaming of it being noon for lunch so I can either go eat since I'm starving or so I can go get a fat overpriced sandwich from the shitty deli downstairs. Check bitcoin price - cringe that I didn't invest $10,000 in 2012. Die a little bit more inside.

Noon - Either a) go out to lunch with brokers / other friends in industry to an overpriced bougie restaurant, and for some reason get either a caesar salad or dainty sandwich instead of the rib-eye steak I actually want to eat, in order to appear to have self control; or b) go to previously mentioned shitty deli downstairs, get in argument with disgruntled proprietor about how much, if any, substituting extra tomatoes with lettuce should cost me.

1:00/1:30 - get back into office, finish working on any deal related work. Pretend not to listen to senior MD/partner a couple of offices over verbally eviscerate some poor junior broker/analyst that made a mistake during the underwriting for a deal that's being retraded.

2:30 - Buyer interview for a new deal we are working on. Proceed to answer thinly veiled, generic inquiries all with the intent of demonstrating how we are not pieces of shit and why they should believe we are not trolling them/will not fuck up the deal for them and close successfully.

3:00 - call with investment committee to walk them through deals we are pitching. Educate others on our markets/submarkets, answer any nuanced questions, hopefully which we've anticipated correctly/prepared for (picklemonkey above mentions this and he's spot on). Check Bitcoin again - experience Schadenfreude as the price has dropped - quietly cackle maniacally while in the bathroom.

4:00 - grab a shot of espresso from downstairs, mainly just to have an excuse to flirt with cute barista.

4:15 - Actively avoid senior managing partner on way back in to office as he has been on a heater since that fateful call from the broker.

4:16 - Finish up various briefs/memos and make a final pass at checking through all of the junior's underwriting and going through assumptions with them before finalizing/sharing with senior team members the next day. Berate one of the juniors for using the phrase '50 yard line location' in a brief for a fucking value add suburban office deal in the middle of bumble-fuck nowhere.

5:30/6:00 - head for home or go grab drinks with some brokers/industry contacts.

"Who am I? I'm the guy that does his job. You must be the other guy."
 

Analyst – acquisitions @ repe fund Fairly Busy Week with no live deals on the table

8:30 – Check emails / review OM that just arrived

8:45-9 – grab a coffee / go for a walk with team / coworker(s)

9:30 – meet with my market’s acq. group to draft a tentative weekly game plan

9:45 –new lease proposal from an asset manager comes in. Begin credit analysis underwriting

10 – fret over stocks / crypto activity

10:15 – call asset managers involved with the OM I am underwriting – formulate and establish general assumptions. Gather data and information about what they’ve seen on recent asset tours.

10:30 – follow up from an IC deal comes in from MD to provide additional metrics / background research with 1 day turnaround. Allocate ad-hoc duties i.e. preparing exhibits/writeups/ppt’s to interns

11:30 –sign CA’s that come in, return to credit underwriting

12-12:30 Lunch / goof off on sites like WSO

2-2:15 pm – grab a coffee / go for a walk with team / coworker(s)

2:30 pm – wrap up credit underwriting and present the terms for approval

3pm – return to follow-up IC request. Reach out to appropriate parties to obtain necessary information

4 pm – weekly pipeline meeting. Discuss general points of interest in our respective markets as well as statuses of live deals and deals on the market.

4:30 pm – return to follow-up IC request.

6:00 pm – MD likes a certain deal we’ve received recently. Asks to create a 1-2 page investment pitch.

Wrap up follow-up IC request. Receive feedback from associate, revise, and distribute.

6:30 pm – Complete investment pitch from MD. Show to associate, revise and distribute.

7:30 pm– eat

7:45 pm - return to initial underwriting. Scrub seller model and model assumptions based on conversation with asset managers earlier.

8:45-9 pm – Finish DCF/AE portion of underwriting. Save returns modeling for the morning. Go home!

 

REPE Analyst Typical Day

7:30 - Snooze

7:45 - Snooze

8:00 - Get up (snooze if it was a long night), shower, breakfast and COFFEE plz

8:15 - Get up if it was a long night

8:45 to 9:00 - Get into the office and check if I have any urgent emails from the night before or from the morning. Read daily news updates and check stock prices of REITs. Fill up on some more CAFFEINE (I need caffeine to function)

9:00 to 10:00 - Will usually have a call every other day with a broker during this time to discuss a deal that may be interesting. Will typically get the 3 minute summary and ask for pricing guidance. 80% of the time, the pricing is too much for us and will pass. 20% of the time when it's interesting, I will either draft up an email to senior guys or tell them what my general thoughts are as to why I think it's interesting. 2 seconds after sending email, will question in my head whether what I said was the stupidest thing of all time and whether I am a total idiot. Most likely I am right, but will then laugh in my head how crazy I am while getting for COFFEE.

10:00 to 12:00 - Most of my time as an analyst at a lean shop involves building excel models, changing argus cashflows, researching markets, pulling comps, and whatever else is needed to understand deals. Unless something extremely important comes up, I'm doing one of these tasks while constantly intaking copious amounts of caffeinated beverages.

12:00 - LUNCHHHHHHH; Usually, I will bring food in from home to eat. I try to eat as healthy as I can and am usually pretty busy midday so don't leave the desk. It's pretty hard to not get a delicious Friday meal however with the co-workers.

12:45 to 3:00 - Continue what I was doing between 10:00 to 12:00. Ask everyone else the millions of questions an analyst has so I don't mess everything up and break the model. wonder in my head if my heart is beating out of my chest because of the fourth glass of coffee or some other unhealthy reason since I didn't work out. Laugh out loud and realize I'm saying everything out loud and my co-works think I'm crazy. Continue modeling.

3:00 - Follow up or present my findings to senior management. Clear up any questions that they have and confirm what I should focus on next. Sometimes that is running sensitivities. Sometimes it's understanding market rents, vacancies, TI/LCs or exit caps. Really depends deal to deal which is why it's hard to say. This is why I need caffeine to stay on my TOES!!!

5:30 - Senior guys start to trickle out and I will continue working on what changes need to be done or what reports senior guys need. Will follow up via email or phone to ask any further questions I have.

7:00 - Order or pick up some delicious dinner. Have funny conversions with other associates that I couldn't have with senior management ranging from real estate to the most absurd things imaginable. Drink more caffeine.

8:00 - Typically finish up whatever important tasks I have for the day and blast out emails to the senior guys. After this, will get to any less timely/important tasks to complete such as reviewing CAs, download materials, or responding to non-interesting deals.

8:30 - Peace out girl scout. Gym. Netflix binge. Talk to the fam bam and GF. REPEAT

 

Job title: unemployed

6:00 - Wake up

6:30 - Gym

8:30 - Breakfast

9:30 - buy some shitty penny stocks

10:00- solicit recruiters and every contact on linkedin

12:00- Lunch

2:00 - Jack off session

3:30- sell penny stock (most likely at a loss)

5:00- Second Jack off session

7:00 Dinner

9:00: Cry myself to sleep thinking about ex-gf/unemployment

 
Funniest

I do Dev and AM analyst stuff so here it goes. (For anonymity concerns, this won't be as intricate) 6:00 Wake up, question why I can't sleep more than 5-6 hours anymore (even weekends). Contemplate working out. Decide to try and sleep for another hour. Doesn't work, wake up 15 minutes later. Shit, shower, shave and make a decent breakfast. 7:30 Arrive at the office and grab some coffee (depending on traffic). Begin reading some industry market research and check news for completely unrelated events. 8:00 Depending on how fucked my day was before, emails are flying and I ignore them because that's a power move and I need to position myself for a promotion within the next 6 months so I can afford this watch I just financed. Otherwise, I continue peacefully pretending i'm important within the walls of my own personal Shangri-La (cubicle). 8:30 Shoot the shit with a couple colleagues. Figure out what everyone is accomplishing for the day and organize workflow/schedule meetings for stuff that we would otherwise email each other 100 times that day to figure out. 9:00 Answer all emails about CapEx projections from AM team for all live projects. Relay that underwritten budget allocations don't reflect the scope of changes to projects entailed. Get sent on a wild goose chase for irrelevant information so AM team can be appeased. 10:30 Receive emails from either my direct Boss or the AM team. Spur of the moment project or otherwise fix current issues at hand. 12:00 Grab a badass lunch by myself, contemplate grabbing a couple lunch beers because i'm a low level alcoholic. 12:45 Play words with friends with the GF (and win). 1:00 Bathroom Break (N/A) 1:30 Email almost all senior exec's about my personal thoughts with relation to our projects (10yr->EBITDA vs multiples) and how that might affect our positions scaled across future earnings. 2:00 Meetings 4:00 Follow up with literally everyone. 5:00 Bitch at accounting for messing up. 5:15 Receive far too many calls from GF. 5:30 Lose my GF. 6:00 Dig into underwriting, realize I might be the smartest person in the universe. 6:30 Leave office. Contemplate leaving forever. 7:00 Grab drinks with friends 9:30 Get back together with GF 10:15 Get home. Watch Netflix.

 

Position: Analyst 1st yr Market: Northern Europe

08:15-08:45 Arrive at work 09:00-10:00 Read news and calendar etc. 10:00-11:00 Meeting with boss or team members to discuss updates on development projects 11:00-11:30 Market research 11:30 - 12:30 Lunch or workout 12:30-16:00 Update excel models and do scenario testing or prepare presentation material for financing roadshow 16:30-17:00 Walk home

 

My day to day might be a little different than others because I work for a developer on the acquisition side so we're bidding on land and not a cashflowing asset. Also, as the name states, my firm is out of NJ building residential products (THs, condos, SF, etc) so there's a ton of competition for buildable land.

  • 9a-get in, start checking emails and catching up on news/meetings/due dates/deadlines

  • 10-start my first project, usually something like finding comps and gathering data about an area

  • 11-continue working on the project if I haven't gotten side tracked. Usually this is something like someone emailing me something that needs attention, a last minute invite to a construction meeting, an update to a different project to document, etc

  • 12-lunch usually by myself, i like having my alone time

  • 1- an online meeting with our architects, engineers, surveryors, or any other consultant

  • 2- reading through a town's minutes or meeting notes to see how notable cases and other developments are going or just doing comp work, underwriting a potential deal. This usually takes up the rest of my afternoon unless there's another consultant meeting or something that pops up as pressing.

This is the most standard day I can map out because as you can imagine there's a lot of change. There's a lot of driving to different towns and doing site visits, meetings with town planners, back and forth with brokers, looking into affordable housing legislation, and random team meetings for extra opinions.

Hope this shows kind of a different role in RE as an analyst but with minimal financial analysis.

 
Ronclue:
What was your previous experience like? This sounds like an ideal job for me

Not too extensive honestly although I did have some help in placement for it. I went to a big 10 school that's building an RE program but it's small right now....I majored in finance and served as the president of the RE club where we participated in a couple case comps and visited a few RE offices as a group. I had an internship with a small (25 buildings) owner/operator whose portfolio was mostly walk ups in brooklyn...I did a lot of everything but mainly underwriting and random accounting work. My placement help was from someone that I had met through the RE club heard about the opening and reached out to me so it was pretty much a shoe in. Kind of just a testament to putting in the effort first though and something good will follow. Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions.

 

Analyst @ International REPE Fund (back office folk to avoid others seeing I arrived so late.

8:10-9:00AM - Check emails, listen to VMs, check news, check Reddit.

9:00-9:30AM - Check my crypto currency holdings. I'm losing my shirt at the moment...

9:30-11:15AM - Work on asset management and models.

11:15-11:20AM - Go to the bathroom hoping it'll somehow be noon by the time I get back to my office.

11:20-12:00PM - Check reddit, news, and social media. I know that I've done all the work that I could for the morning and promise myself I'll be more productive in the afternoon.

12:00-12:45PM - Eat lunch... usually shake shack.

12:45-2:00PM - Modeling and Asset Management.

2:00-3:00PM - Meet with one of my bosses regarding my projects or something.

3:00-4:00PM - Meeting caused some sort of fire drill... I spend an hour fixing something that was never a big deal because someone panicked unnecessary. Usually same MD every time.

4:00-5:30PM - Coast rest of the day because higher ups start leaving around 4PM.

Go For Chambers
 

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