WSO Podcast | E52: Goldman IB to CRE Private Equity. Optimize for This.

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Member @crePE shares his unlikely path. How he broke into Goldman's ECM group even with no IB summer internship to why he turned down the analyst to associate promotion offered to him two years later. Why he moved west to start working in Commercial Real Estate (CRE) Institutional Sales in Chicago and how he eventually was able to successfully make the jump to the buy-side at a real estate private equity shop on the west coast. This episode has a lot of great lessons about optimizing your life and I'll hope you'll listen to the advice from this guest and take them to heart.

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WSO Podcast (Episode 52) Transcript:

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:05] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis. Your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me as I talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, member CRE shares his path from undergrad to working as a brokerage analyst. He covers his shift over to the portfolio management side of the business, why he enjoys real estate, how much his pay has gone up since he graduated four years ago and what's in store for him next. Also, listen to hear what he's investing in now and who he feels is a good fit for real estate finance careers. Enjoy. All right. C.a.r.e Entrepreneur. Thank you much. Thank you so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.

CREPE: [00:00:58] Yeah, absolutely, thanks for having me on.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:00] So it'd be great if you could just give the listeners a little background about where you come from.

CREPE: [00:01:07] Sure, so I'm from Pennsylvania. I live near the Philadelphia area, just outside the city. And that's kind of where I'm coming from, location wise.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:19] And then, yeah, just a little bit of summary of your experience.

CREPE: [00:01:23] Sure, so out of undergrad, I knew that I wanted to work in real estate, real estate finance. I'd had some experiences during undergrad working as property manager and subcontractor to be involved in real estate and quickly realized that that was two parts of real estate I did not want to be involved in, wanted to be more involved in the real estate finance side. From there, I was in a kind of a secondary market, not a lot of developers in my area that would necessitate hiring a full time analyst. Mm hmm. So they were really only two in my county where I lived. One did hotels, one did self-storage. I knew the guy with hotels growing up, but he wasn't hiring. He was looking at being on an analyst. But the self-storage guy was. So from there, that's how I got into the niche of self-storage. Specifically, that company was a development and brokerage company and worked for them for a few years. So, I mean, if you have any questions, I know.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:31] Yeah, so

CREPE: [00:02:32] Are you off there a little bit?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:33] Yeah, real quick. You said you knew what the first part wasn't for you. So when you were an undergrad, you were kind of doing. Tell me about that type of work and kind of how you even fell into thinking real estate might be something you like.

CREPE: [00:02:46] Yeah, so my undergrad experience was unique, I started college when I was 15, and

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:54] That's super early

CREPE: [00:02:55] For years.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:56] What's that? That's super early.

CREPE: [00:02:59] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was just kind of a unique opportunity that I had, and obviously some other things went by the wayside didn't get to do high school sports like I would have liked to and did college instead. But. From there. Growing up in kind of one of the benefits that I had of growing up in kind of a relatively smaller community is that was a little more. I guess there are more job opportunities where I could get into roles that I really had no business being in. I mean, as a property manager was 18 years old when I became property manager for about six months and it was kind of almost sort of an internship. And. But at the same time, I'm on my first day as property manager. My boss walked in and dropped a file on my desk with five people to file evictions on. So it was very hands on experience where I was dealing with all the things the property manager would for a pretty large mixed use development. And from there, I quickly came to realize, you know, what I don't want to do with my life is file evictions on people, handle utility bills, make sure people have their rent in by the end of the month. Those were things that. A really, really important. But I find myself more attracted to the development side, the acquisition side, the brokerage side of real estate.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:29] So when you were in your undergrad and you had that, say, six month internship, how did you even know that above the other side of real estate was just through talking with friends? Was it networking? Like, what did you say? Oh. Because it's very different to be doing working with a developer versus being an analyst, necessarily for like a larger real estate company. Do you know what I mean? So when did you think was there? Was there a path or was there a mentor? Was there somebody kind of that guided you early on?

CREPE: [00:04:59] That's a good question, so I have always had a interest in the built environment and in the process of creating communities. And from there. You know, I didn't have anybody that I knew growing up who was really involved in real estate development process and kind of explained it to me. So I kind of, you know, segment segue my way into it with this kind of ancillary jobs in construction and property management. And the people that I was working within these smaller companies, those working directly with the owners of these companies. So I was seeing them. Kind of put together a vision for the properties that they were working with, you know, very creative renovations and reuses of properties. I was seeing them put together a vision, bring together a team and make it happen. And from there I looked at that and you said that that's more of the role that I want to have.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:02] So more like the leadership role in a small, small firm where you're not the one collecting rent checks like you said or dealing with utility bills, but the one who's maybe leading a team of people kind of developing these, these developing real estate rather than working in it. Got it.

CREPE: [00:06:20] Yeah, and I've heard it. I've heard a developer compared to a conductor where there's a lot of people doing a smaller part of the process and the developer brings them together and make sure the timelines all work together harmoniously. And that's something that I really aspire to. Hmm. So that's where that role made more sense for me.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:45] Do you feel like going to college so early? You know you started in your 15? I assume you graduated around when you were 19. Did you feel that you didn't quite have the time for the internships and the exploration that you would have liked? Or do you feel like it was nice to kind of get working earlier?

CREPE: [00:07:03] Like getting into. Yes, actually. Yeah, it was a little bit of both. Had I got a more traditional route, I think I really would have enjoyed. Doing formal internships and

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:18] Or enjoyed college, maybe interning you weren't even of drinking, you weren't even of drinking age when you were when you graduated. Oh yeah,

CREPE: [00:07:25] Yeah, exactly. So yeah, yeah, I also would have probably enjoyed having a college experience. I mean, I had definitely some of that after getting out of college, but right? Definitely not living on campus or just off campus. So that's something that I would have enjoyed, but at the same time. I'm, you know, a couple of years ahead of where I would have been otherwise.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:51] Fair enough. Ok, so you're kind of coming up toward graduation. Tell me about the recruiting process. Like, so what did you have a job lined up after your junior summer? Was it like, were you unemployed for a little while after graduating? What was the process of kind of coming up toward graduation?

CREPE: [00:08:07] So In tertiary markets like the one I was in. Even in secondary markets, I think the process for finding a job as an analyst is very, very different than it would be in a primary or gateway market. And what I mean by that is that there is no recruiting process for small development companies. A lot of development companies in real estate. Have a pretty small number of people within their office, so there might not even be a full time in charge person dedicated the function of finding new analyst or associates or employees. So from there, the way I found my particular role was unique in that. Maybe unique, maybe not that unique in that I looked around for development companies in the area. Narrowed it down to ones that would be large enough to actually hire an analyst. You know, if somebody just developing an apartment building or two a year and working from their den in their house, they're not going to hire an analyst, right? So they have some scale. And then from there, you know, I reached out to them, directly, walked into their offices, you know, cold, called essentially and said, This is who I am. I don't know if you're hiring for this role, but if you want to grow your company, here's how I can help you.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:35] And what did you say, like what do you mean? Here's how I can help you. You had specific plan outline or something.

CREPE: [00:09:41] Yeah, so. Analyst in real estate. Take care a lot of take care of a lot of the headaches principles and higher level employees don't want to handle, so it can be ultimately stuff as simple as data entry type functions for real estate or data collection for market analysis. And that's something where a lot of real estate, a lot of smaller real estate companies, developing companies they might not necessarily be thinking about. How can I know offload this to someone else, but if the opportunity presents itself, that's something that is usually pretty attractive to them

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:28] As long as you're cheap enough, right?

CREPE: [00:10:30] Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, that's definitely part of it, but then you also consider that depending on what their business model is, the fees that they can charge. So it sounds like really?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:42] Yeah, yeah. So it sounds like you basically there was no real recruiting process. So when did you just start interviewing as you were approaching graduation in a few places, you were cold calling your when did you have your job and out of that work?

CREPE: [00:10:56] Yeah, so I did I did interview as I was getting. Approaching my graduation, I mean, I probably started looking for six months before graduating, started looking in earnest and narrowed it down and started talking and interviewing, and I had a job lined up probably about two months before I graduated.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:17] And then can you tell me about how big that firm was and what your role was there? I know it was more of a broker. You're more of a brokerage analyst or broker analyst. Can you explain what that is versus the other stuff like? What is what is it?

CREPE: [00:11:31] Well, that company was a self-storage brokerage and development company, so that's not an uncommon model for real estate because brokerage fees are subject to very high tax rates essentially treated as income tax development is very tax favoured, so it makes sense for a broker who might have really high levels of market knowledge to protect some of that money. Some of those brokerage commissions by rolling them into development got it. So the company that I work for had. So, so the role that I had essentially was supporting a broker's team of five brokers as the sole analyst, bringing together models, market analysis and offering memorandums.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:20] This is mostly for commercial, mostly for commercial real estate. What's that this is for commercial real estate, her properties that were

CREPE: [00:12:28] Either specifically for self-storage?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:31] Got it. Okay. So stuff that was up for sale or stuff up for sale or stuff that was this company actually like breaking ground and doing the full development from like from buying the land and stuff like that all the way up through the sale or.

CREPE: [00:12:46] So, so the brokerage team was for sales, and we did both existing properties and land that was permitted for self-storage development. Got it. Ok. And then, yeah, I also ended up doing some asset management work as well for the ownership side of the company.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:05] So tell me how those two differ. Like what are you doing on the brokerage side day to day versus what are you doing on the asset management side?

CREPE: [00:13:12] So brokerage side, you're cranking through tons of properties and tons of markets, and that's pretty interesting because you get to see how hundreds of different operators run their properties and you kind of get a feel for what works and what doesn't. And you also get a feel for what markets are doing well and which are. From there, asset management, you're working with the same, you know, 15, 30 properties, whatever it is, you're working at the same properties every month. Tracking metrics, trying to tweak the performance of their operations on their properties to help them perform better.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:52] And those are the ones that are owned principally by the firm. Is that how you should think of it? What's that? Those are the properties that are actually owned by the firm themselves. So like they're in the portfolio, OK, so they're in the portfolio. They've either been developed or they've been purchased. They've been developed or they've been purchased because the deal was seen as attractive at the time. So like, you're dealing with the portfolio of assets, so you're trying to figure out like looking at price, looking at. Competitor, I mean, what type of stuff are you looking at when you're trying to help these units do better?

CREPE: [00:14:26] Yeah, so asset management kind of works in tandem with property management, property management. You have somebody at an HQ working with onsite property managers and handling a lot of functions like bookkeeping, H.R., auditing those kinds of things, making sure the properties are running smoothly, but from their asset management kind of helps. Property management see the forest instead of just individual trees. And what I mean by that is that management kind of pulls the lens out and says, you know, here's a performance six months ago compared to last week in property management would be looking week to week or month or month. And looking for longer term trends, looking for capital improvements that need to be made to properties, looking for any risk in the market that might be coming up or new opportunities. The property management just might just miss out on.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:25] And so is this something you were trained on the job or something like you had kind of done training self-study for? How did you prepare for this or was this something you just learn on the job through, like watching the more senior brokers in the senior asset managers? Kind of.

CREPE: [00:15:40] Do stuff, so a lot of it was learned on the job, I had some pretty basic training through college for the financial analysis side of things. Yeah, but real estate ends up being so specific into specific categories of real estate and how they're operated in different markets that a lot of it ends up being on the job anyway. Right?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:04] Cool, and then so you're there for a couple of years. Did you feel like this is a place you could build long term? What prompted the change? And then let's talk a little bit about like what where you are, I guess now, right? And then, yeah, what you're doing and notice you're also getting a masters. So just the thought process behind that.

CREPE: [00:16:25] Yeah, so the reason I made the change from student, I sorry, from self-storage to student housing where I currently am was just the opportunity to work with some bigger deals kind of moving into some more complex transactions in self-storage. A typical transaction size for an existing property is around three and a half million dollars. Ranging up to 15 to $20 million for a larger self-storage property. Ok, from there, on the student housing side, we wouldn't touch anything really below $20 million. And a lot of the assets we deal with are closer to $75 million is kind of a typical asset price. But I've also had the opportunity to work on some very large portfolios, ranging from half a billion dollars to $5.8 billion. And in about two years, I've had the opportunity to work on about $20 billion worth of transactions. So it's been a big jump in terms of the complexity of projects that I've been working on the scale.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:26] So that's fair. So is this new firm, the one you're at currently? It just has a much larger portfolio in a broader portfolio. Is that fair or is it? Is it all student housing?

CREPE: [00:17:36] Yeah, sorry, I didn't clarify the firm I work for is primarily an equity placement company as well as sales brokerage sales. Ok. So they do have some ownership, but they're kind of bread and butter is fee based model where they're helping source funds for developers.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:56] Got it. So it's still in their brokerage shop primarily, but they do have a portfolio.

CREPE: [00:18:02] Yeah, exactly.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:03] Ok, so in terms of your balance, did you also start off kind of in the brokerage side there and then kind of start doing more? Is that typical like going from the brokerage side to then doing a little bit more of the asset management in the portfolio management? Or so?

CREPE: [00:18:21] So for the student housing side, it don't do a lot on asset management, I primarily do the debt and equity placement, okay, but that ends up being fairly working as some fairly complex transactions where we're looking at

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:39] Through the broker. So you're trying are you're like running a process to try and get buyers, buyers or, you know, in place or for example, like so can you give me an example of like a typical deal, like who would bring you on or how it would work?

CREPE: [00:18:53] Yeah, so a typical deal might look something like this. A developer finds a site at a major university that they think would be great for student housing. They get it under contract, get approvals in place and they have a million dollars into it. And they're running low on cash because they have several other product projects under contract. So they reach out to us and say, I have a million dollars in this deal. Twenty million dollar deal, can you help us source the rest of the capital stack? From there, we might find them an equity partner with four million dollars in a bank to loan $15 million on the property, and they would build it. Then they would come back to us in two years after spilt and fully leased, and they would say, we built this asset. The investor partner that you brought us one side of the deal, so we want to sell it. Are you willing to help us sell this asset for $30 million? We would run through the sale process with them and get them out of the property.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:51] Got it. So explain just in terms of where your firm would capture value there. I assume it's just lining up the equity and debt, you know, helping them fill out the rest of it as a broker, helping them fill it, the rest of the capital stock so that they can have the capital to complete the twenty million dollar project, right? But what is what are you taking in terms of like fees? It's almost like a real estate investment banking, right where you're just taking a cut of the transaction or is it of the money raised? Is that how you'd necessarily think of it?

CREPE: [00:20:23] Yes. Yeah, it is like investment banking, where it's a small couple of blips off of each deal, depending on the size of the deal.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:32] And so that's for both debt and equity. You guys have kind of probably relationships with banks, so, you know, kind of who to bring in on what types of deals. And then same thing on the equity side. And then so tell me, is that something that sounds like it's the main? Main part of the business, right, for where you're working now. Is that correct? Yes.

CREPE: [00:20:52] Yes, that's definitely the main part of the business. And then from again, from there, there's tax benefits from being a developer where a lot of that the income gets rolled into development

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:02] And that's where the assets come for. You guys actually have some properties, always you're always holding onto something.

CREPE: [00:21:08] Yeah, that's exactly right.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:10] Got it, and so tell me a little bit about the skill set that you've developed that's been different from the first place with the with the self-storage, you know, going to student housing. Has it been very different or do you feel like a lot of the skills you learned at your first job were relevant?

CREPE: [00:21:24] The student housing is definitely more complex, and there are a couple of reasons for that. But. You start dealing with things like ground leases, retail leases, I mean, obviously in self-storage, you're not having retail leases, so student housing has that as a component. A lot of self-storage properties are purchased with friends and family money, while student housing is much more institutional, so we do a lot of joint venture modelling for our clients. Got it. And that's just not something that you would necessarily do with self-storage, but you get a lot of in student housing.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:01] Was there any training when you started? Yes. Or was there any training when you came in or was again kind of just learned by learn by trial and error by watching and on the job?

CREPE: [00:22:11] So a lot of stuff was kind of self-taught before I arrived there. There's some great online courses. Rfm has a great course for real estate. Mm hmm. I am. I highly recommend the skim program and all of their courses. Tell me there's some really great courses.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:31] Tell me what that is. What's the I?

CREPE: [00:22:34] Yeah, so that's called the certified commercial investment member. It's a non-profit organization that essentially is geared around teaching real estate professionals. Ok. And yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:50] And so it teaches you the modelling, the basics, the theory behind it and all that. And it's like, yeah, if you dig

CREPE: [00:22:57] Into the modelling, the finance side, the market analysis side, those major components or real estate analysis.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:05] So what was the hardest part between jumping from the first position right out of undergrad to the second one? Was there any like thing that stood out that surprised you besides the complexity of the deals?

CREPE: [00:23:16] You know, I don't think there was anything that really. Surprised me, you know, going into my first job out of undergrad, it was pretty steep learning curve, just not being super familiar with Excel or with some of the other programs that I use on a daily basis. Mm hmm. That was a big learning curve going from. Self-storage, student housing. You're kind of fundamentally talking about some of the same things, the same metrics for analysing investments. So from there, it's just a little bit of a more complicated model that was working with before.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:54] Got it. So it seems like you've been doing really well. You know, you had a couple of years at your first place. You kind of went upstream, I'd say, to larger deals, more complex deals. I assume the pay has also bumped year over year or each year.

CREPE: [00:24:08] Yeah, absolutely. It's been. It's been very rewarding.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:11] Can you tell me like just rough ranges about what you were making of your first came out around where you are now? It doesn't have to be exact and like, how much is that distributed base versus bonus?

CREPE: [00:24:21] For people. So in. Initially, as an analyst in a tertiary market for a niche asset class and not having kind of the background that you would look for, I was thinking about 40k a year and that

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:39] Is I'd assume it would be low right out of school. Yeah, I would. I wouldn't assume. Yeah, yeah, OK.

CREPE: [00:24:45] I definitely at the time, I wasn't, you know, super happy about that. But it's one of those things where in real estate, as with many other industries, you're kind of expected to put in some time before you start to get rewarded. Right? From there jumped to around 90 to a year in my current position and after my finish, my master's program probably going to be looking at associates positions will be closer to 130 again in secondary markets if I move somewhere like San Francisco, New York or Chicago. Yeah, probably would be paid more.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:24] So tell me, is there a reason you're staying in the secondary or tertiary markets? Is there? Do you feel like it's just a better lifestyle or what's the thought process behind that?

CREPE: [00:25:34] I feel like it's a better lifestyle, maybe better value for your money as well. So it is just that. Being from Pennsylvania, I kind of want to stay close to family and friends, yeah, that's fair. But yeah, I mean, just as like a touch point, I get a very nice one bed, one bath apartment here near Philly for 12:50 a month. Right. So to get that same kind of apartment in like a garden setting, garden style apartment setting in New York City, you know?

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:09] I just you're looking at four thousand different there in terms of. Yeah.

CREPE: [00:26:15] You know, your mileage.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:16] Yeah, yeah, for sure. So yeah, you mentioned your masters. Tell me a little bit about the thought. Are you working full time while getting this master's or have you taken a break? Yeah, and tell me about

CREPE: [00:26:28] The Masters, yeah, and

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:29] Tell me a little bit about this, this whole program and is it common for people to go back to do a master's degree in real estate? And what does that even mean? Like, what are you learning there?

CREPE: [00:26:40] Sure, so historically, master's programs for real estate professionals have been pretty limited. And so people have either gone back for an MBA or a master's in urban planning, OK, but from there, there's been growth in master's programs at pretty good schools over the last few years. Last two decades, this caller OK. And this schools include but without getting into that. The program that I'm attending is at Georgetown University and they offer the program in person or online. And I looked at the numbers decide to do it online. It's a two year program and I'm able to do it while keeping a job.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:26] That's great. And so are you doing it like at night? Is your schedule just kind of becoming more tight and more difficult? Is it more? Is it paced like you have to attend live classes or how does that even work?

CREPE: [00:27:38] You know, it's not that bad, typically with my day job and working between 50 to 60 hours a week, OK? And then on the class work side for a master's program, I'm putting in another 10 to 20 hours a week. So It's not a workload that bothers me. It might be a bit much for some people, but it's obviously, you know, you talk to a lot of people and that's I'm thinking, that's not even, you know, that's a good week for them.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:05] Did you? Are you? Does it ever scale up? I assume when you're near a deal? Do you ever feel like you have to put in 60 70 hour weeks set at your firm? Or is it pretty consistent, like 40 to 50, 50 to 60, you know, 50 five in a bad week or 16 a bad week?

CREPE: [00:28:20] So it really depends on the week. There's definitely been weeks where it's been 48 hours in the morning. You know, work through whatever I'm working on and out at five. And that's a great week. Last night at work till 10 30, so it's just kind of depends on what projects are coming in and how fast you they get through them.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:46] What's the plan? Once you have this master's you, do you think maybe you're going to stay at the same firm? Is there growth potential there? Or is it something where having that master's degree now opens up a lot more doors?

CREPE: [00:29:01] So the plan after I finished my master's degree or even while I'm working on it, is to get a position as an associate at either a development company or investment company for real estate where a D on the development or acquisition side from there already engaging in networking. Working group contacts that are developed in the last few years working in real estate and. Kind of looking for that next opportunity.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:28] So how would you suggest people prepare for these types of interviews? You just have a passionate passion for real estate, and obviously you've worked now in the industry for about four years, so you have that knowledge, you have a little bit of that network. Have you been aggressive personally kind of building that network outside of the people you've worked with? Like, have you been or in a specific region or have you kind of just let it come naturally?

CREPE: [00:29:52] It's been a little bit of both. I mean, the one thing that have been very aggressive on is education and pouring money and time into education. I mean, I earn the designation. I've spent a lot of time on the different online courses that are out there like RFM and obviously working on a master's degree now. So I spent a lot of time and money on education, and from there we developed some great networks through education. And when you're getting into that niche? Industry specific education, you definitely develop some good contacts. From there, I found that. At least in my area, you know, generally speaking, real estate industry mixers are more or less a waste of time. So I wouldn't necessarily spend a lot of time on those.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:43] Why do you think that if anybody? Why do you say that?

CREPE: [00:30:46] Yeah, I mean,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:47] What's been your experience that makes you say that?

CREPE: [00:30:51] So for real estate mixers, there's a few people who might attend to our kind of the top of the food pyramid in terms of they are. High net worth individuals who own a significant amount of real estate and might have a real estate firm. Yeah, and those are kind of the people that everybody else wants to talk to. From there you have people like me or analysts or if it's just nice to talk to you, other analysts and associates, but it's not. Super helpful. And then you have industry vendors, people who offer ancillary services to real estate operators and owners. And it's not really helpful at all to talk to them. It's even less helpful.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:40] So, OK, that's fair.

CREPE: [00:31:43] From there, it's kind of it's one of those things where, you know, I found I get a lot more. Benefit out of asking one of those individuals, one of those owners, to just meet for coffee or something like that. It's easier, just a cold call them and ask to meet in person and has that word.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:59] Has that worked for you as a mixer? Has that worked for you and you like doing this through LinkedIn? How are you actually like reaching out to people?

CREPE: [00:32:08] Yeah, so do through LinkedIn and. And kind of. Again, kind of sometimes it helps to maybe go to the mixture so that you meet them once, shake their hands and then follow up with them on LinkedIn and say, Hey, I met you last weekend at this mixer. Right? Is there any chance I can meet you for a half hour by wherever you are and make it easy for them and.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:33] Yeah. And then what's the purpose of those conversations just to build a relationship a little bit more so potentially down the road, it could lead to a job or is it just building relationships? So every time I

CREPE: [00:32:42] Go, yeah, every time I go into one of those conversations, I try to have some talking points for something. Some things to ask them that I can't easily Google. And what I mean by that is I don't want to ask them, what do you think of retail as an investment right now? You know, something like that that I can Google or that's too vague. But if I can ask them something more specific about, Hey, I looked on your website and I saw that you bought this specific asset and you turn it around and for four years and you have your purchase price and your exit price and the actual price is way higher. Tell me what you did there. I'm just curious. Usually, people who have been really successful in real estate really enjoy talking about it. So that is a pretty good learning experience in and of itself.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:27] So you're doing it, really just actually learn about the deals or you're doing it to build relationships or both.

CREPE: [00:33:33] A little bit of both. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think that anybody getting a real estate kind of quickly realizes that. There's some very, very, very large firms in real estate, and then there are a whole lot of entrepreneurs and. There's really two types of people in real estate finance, the kind of people who want to go work for the Blackstone, for the world and kind of people who want to. Eventually, own real estate themselves.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:59] So which one are you?

CREPE: [00:34:02] Yeah, I'm definitely in the second camp.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:04] Got it. So if we think of when people say real estate, investment banking, real estate, private equity, that's nothing that never really interested you. You've always been more interested in working for developers kind of on the ground and being an analyst.

CREPE: [00:34:20] Yeah, I really enjoy the finance aspect of it, I really enjoy. Digging into digging into models and figuring out how to create complex models that. Show someone else with the results of a project, Ah. Mm hmm. But at the end of the day, what I what is really rewarding is. Building places, you know, putting together projects where there's a piece of dirt or an old building that was underutilized and finding a way to make it somewhere that people want to be very cool.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:57] And do you feel like I guess your path now is. In terms of like next steps, when you said what you want to have an associate position, how should I think of that? Is it is it similar type of analysis you'd be doing or you'd have analysts underneath you working or how still doing debt and equity placements? Is that what you're thinking, just maybe at a larger.

CREPE: [00:35:17] Larger. Yeah, no, so yeah, what I'm interested in doing is working more or less directly underneath the developer and helping them source sites to develop or working under someone who buys existing properties and helping them find properties to buy. And kind of searching, I mean, what I really enjoy about that kind of work is that you're combining market analysis with financial analysis, and those two things interact with each other so closely and affect each other so closely that it ends up being a bit of an art and science.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:57] Do you feel like now that you've kind of worked in two distinct niches, so you did the storage and then you did the student housing? Do you feel like you could branch to another or do you feel like you're kind of limited and need to stay in one of those two?

CREPE: [00:36:12] I definitely don't feel limited at this point, but if anything that would be due to the work that I've done on the education side, I mean, the master's program with Georgetown is very focused on exposing you to different kinds of assets. So I did a market analysis class at Georgetown and learned how to do market analysis for office resorts, hotels, multifamily, retail and industrial properties. So it kind of gives me a broad base to work off of.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:44] Very cool. Do you feel like you'd obviously probably still learn a lot on the job if you did join one of those other types, but obviously it just gives you a base to feel confident in an interview. Is there a lot of interview prep through this master program or like they're prepping you for the job? Or is that kind of you're expected to go out on your own? Like, is there a on a sort of on campus presence where firms are coming to interview or developers like those that that mid-level that you'd be interested in?

CREPE: [00:37:11] I don't think there is. I think in real estate, it's as an industry, it's really up to you as an individual to find a career path. Kind of through networking, through cold calling through. Keeping in touch with people who might have opportunities.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:32] Fair enough, fair enough. So do you feel like your current position will be there for as long as you want it? Or what's the I guess, what's the what? Let's say you go through this master's program and you're not finding the position that you that's ideal. Or let's say we go through a recession and there's just less positions open and real estate takes a little bit of a dip. Is it something where you feel or like there's less transactions happening? Would you feel safe at your current place or would you feel like there's room for you to grow in case you're are you? I think you could kind of find

CREPE: [00:38:06] It's the kind of answer that I definitely feel comfortable that they would, you know, even if there was a period where the fees they were bringing in and weren't supporting their expenses. I mean, keep in mind there. Expense ratio is going to be pretty good for a brokerage team because you've got salaries, some office space and travel expenses. So from there, I feel pretty confident that they would. Keep me on as long as I needed to be on, as long as I was showing up to work and doing a good job. Yeah.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:43] I'm just curious what happened to firms like this, you know, way back in the financial crisis? I'm wondering, I'm wondering, was it like a did everyone like either just tighten their belts and obviously no bonuses and keep most people? Or did people lose their jobs? You know, that's what I'm trying to get to is is what's the, you know, is it really cyclical or at these smaller, these smaller shops is is it a little more insulated, you know, just because they have their little niche and their kind of their assets are kind of chugging along and doing OK and insulated a little bit more?

CREPE: [00:39:15] So it kind of depends on the individual company, and it depends on the. The world that you're in, for example, if you're an asset management, you're probably safe. You're probably one of the last few jobs to go in terms of real estate. Because you're kind of performing pretty integral, ongoing maintenance on properties in terms of their financials and performance, right? So that's one of the last things you're going to cut as an owner. Right? On the other hand, if you're in development, you know, that might be one of the first things they cut because like, it's just there's as fas I know.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:56] What's that? There's just not going be enough development going on or without, let's say, in a recession.

CREPE: [00:40:00] Yeah, but it's also one of those things where you think about the last recession of 2008, everything you know, liquidity crunch, everything kind of locked up. And there were definitely developers that lost their shirts. In that case, they were definitely a lot of developers that had to work through bank work through with banks, some of their loans to keep them from getting foreclosed on. Yeah, but from there, if you're in that position, you want to be well positioned to re-enter the market when there is liquidity and capital available again. Yes. And you know, at the same time, there's also very opportunistic real estate owners who buy a lot during recessions. I mean, probably the second most famous real estate personality is Sam Zell, and that's you know, how he's. Made his legacy is buying during recessions.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:56] Yeah, for sure, lots of opportunities. You have the capital to deploy right at the right time. Yeah. Well, anything else before we call it that you'd like to share with the younger listeners that may be thinking of a career in real estate?

CREPE: [00:41:12] Yeah, I mean, it's a very rewarding career in terms of the kind of projects you get to work on are very interesting. I will say it's definitely. As you kind of alluded to, less of a. Um. Less of an ultra-secure, proven path kind of job with an easy path and a clearly defined pathogen. It's very undefined path, but if you're if you have an entrepreneurial personality. Real estate is one of those industries that works really well with that type of personality.

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:46] Got it. Fair enough. We'll leave it at that, I think. I couldn't agree more. I think it's interesting my cousins and doing a lot of real estate right now, investing in it's perfect for him. I think he's found his calling. So thanks so much for being on the podcast today. It was really, really interesting. Thanks for educating me as well.

CREPE: [00:42:06] Yeah, absolutely, I appreciate it,

Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:09] And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street, Oasis, if you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis. And till next time.