How to Start a Career in Commercial Real Estate
My advice is for two groups: college students and professionals looking to transition into Commercial Real Estate.
College students, EVERYONE wants to help you. Leverage that. Do research on firms in your town. Ask professors if they know any local professionals personally. Drop by the career center and ask if any of the firms recruit from your university.
Once you know who you want to shadow, do your homework on the person. Google them. Go to their company website and read about the deals they are working on. Add them on LinkedIn. Show them that you care.
Write them a short, clear, and concise email demonstrating your interest in CRE and your willingness to meet them for coffee or lunch. If they don’t have the time, offer to walk their things out to their car for them after work. It doesn’t come off as desperate, it comes off as hungry. And decision-makers like that.
Very few companies teach and train young graduates. Get a job valet parking or waitressing and shadow a CRE professional for free. Do retail, office, industrial. See what kind of lifestyles they live and determine if you would enjoy it.
Take a Predictive Index Test to see what your personality fits.
People in another profession: Don’t ask people for lunch. Just ask to chat or get coffee. Expand your network. It’s about who knows you, not who you know. Do all the same due diligence I spoke about above, and be willing to do whatever it takes to prove yourself to the decision-maker. That means being educated on their deals and their market. Be able to comment on their business, but don’t simply show up and throw up. Do whatever it takes to get those minutes with the decision-maker, then dazzle them.
And remember, the best time to find another job is while you already have a job. Don’t quit your current job until you have already done the diligence, spoken with the decision-maker, and come to a deal with the new company. Always keep six months worth of living expenses in cash in the bank for times like this as well.
Some of you may be transitioning from sales jobs with commission-only payment structures. If you are, then you already understand the risk involved. For those transitioning from a base salary job, I would leave yourself six to nine months of expenses in cash in the bank as a security blanket. Commercial real estate has a long deal cycle, and it can surprise even very savvy salesmen from other industries who transition into the business and are unfamiliar with the long deal cycles. A lot of due diligence goes into most commercial real estate deals. Therefore, the deal can last anywhere from a month to a year or more, depending on your specific business.
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