The other guy is associate level at the real estate research company, although I'm not sure he makes that much money. The fact is, off all my co-workers, 3 of us have made out pretty well as a direct result of the job-the 1 girl (super hot actually.) stayed with the group and has done well for herself (she's a certified general appraiser with her own clients) and I exited into an elite group at a GSE (I had the right experience at the right time in the rare instance a job with this group opened up). Just based on what I've seen among my former co-workers in the Mid-Atlantic (for the next job immediatley following the analyst stint)-one (me) moved to multifamily underwriting at Freddie Mac one took a government research role with the Navy one joined a government consulting firm with a generic job one left and joined a real estate research company one got a job at the nuclear regulatory commission and 1 fell off the map completely. So the obvious answer is that 20% are staying and making a career of it. If there are, say, 10 analysts doing this work 8 of them will exit this industry within 30 months. Well.out of this job I would say it's mostly luck or happenstance where you end up. Prior to this I was in fixed income, and while I understand that the upside there is lot higher, I feel like I have a much better lifestyle, a lot less stress, and a lot more stability in appraising. My perception is that if you are smart, it is not that hard to make $175,000 a year without killing yourself working. I think every certified general in our office who is at least somewhat competent is making 6 figures ($100k-$350k) with the directors doing very well. What were the fee structures in the groups you worked for? I work for a large national group and I feel like our structure isn't that bad. Great experience, poor long-term career path except for a handful of owners. I would imagine that writing reports for guys who are making more money than you would eventually get old.įee splits with principal - low margins for work complete (compared to other industries). I wouldn't recommend this position for the long term for 2 reasons:įee structure - Its simple, right more reports and you'll make more $$$. There is an enormous amount of research that goes into this type of position, and you get exposure to numerous other related CRE professionals/fields (b/c you need to talk with everyone associated with the property - asset manager, property manager, owner, lender, tenants, owners of comparables, appraisal district, zoning, etc.). REValuation:I also worked in commercial RE appraisal directly out of undergraduate and learned ALOT. It was extremely disheartening to learn how hard I worked was really for naught. I did find out later when I moved to Freddie Mac Multiamily's underwriting group that yes, appraisals are a formality and are essentially un-reviewed other than looking at page 1 with the value. If we charged $5,000 for an appraisal then by God it was going to be quality. However, the group I worked with was a 100-person, 5-office national boutique that took its job deadly seriously. Those are probably the guys you have been talking to. Now, you've got your big real estate firms that may work more like a production shop-spit out junk as fast as possible. I would absolutely not choose it as a full-time career path, but for a new college grad who wants to actually learn more about real estate than how to value a mortgage-backed security then it's probably the single best experience one could get. that one learns as an analyst working with CRE appraisals. If you're really passionate about hands on real estate (not the bullsh*t real estate of Wall Street where people manipulate securities, but legit ground level real estate) there is literally no better experience than spending 12 months learning about CRE zoning, taxes, revenue streams, source information, traditional financing, county governance, LEED standards, etc. I HATED the job, but looking back it was amazing experience. I've never worked so hard for so little in my entire life. The job paid $35,000 per year plus OT/bonus. If you're doing national work, on every appraisal you have to actively discover where to find tax rules, assessment rules, zoning information, economic information, etc. You've got to be a very competent writer-you literally have to have college degree level writing abilities. I had to make hours of phone calls for each appraisal, had to modify and manipulate, well, 120 pages of information-maps, graphs, spreadsheets, paragraphs, pictures, etc. Yeah, your 120-page appraisal template is already created so you're just modifying the information, but you're still talking about 120 Word Document pages of material. It was a very difficult job-every appraisal requires a ton-A TON-of research. My first year or so (I say "or so" because, well, it's an odd story) I worked in commercial appraisal.
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