The Best Commercial Real Estate Jobs For Beginners

There are a lot of different career paths you could pursue within commercial real estate, but breaking into some of these in the first place can be pretty tough.

If you’ve started the job search process already, you may have already seen this, with even some entry-level roles looking for candidates with industry experience.

So in this post, we’ll walk through what I see as the three best commercial real estate jobs for beginners in this industry (that don’t come from a real estate work or educational background), and where you might be able to take your career by starting on each path.

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Path #1: Investment Sales Analyst

The first path I want to highlight is working as an investment sales analyst at a big-name brokerage shop like CBRE, JLL, Eastdil, or Cushman & Wakefield.

Companies looking to hire for these types of positions are typically looking for candidates who have a demonstrated ability to work hard over a sustained period of time and a strong understanding of real estate finance and Excel, but they don’t usually require multiple years of industry experience.

These positions will teach you how to underwrite deals, read commercial leases, conduct market research, and create a compelling investment thesis, all of which are valuable skills in virtually every part of commercial real estate.

Investment sales analyst roles will also introduce you to a variety of different investment and development firms that are actively buying, building, and selling commercial real estate. This will help you learn about the different investment strategies out there, and this will also help you build relationships with companies that might be potential future employers.

Common Career Progression

A very common career move for investment sales analysts is to work for a client after about 2-3 years in brokerage, typically in an acquisitions role with a more senior-level title.

In my experience, this is one of the best ways to get into real estate private equity. If you’re looking to maximize your exit opportunities and get a lot of exposure to transaction volume in a very short period of time, it’s really hard to beat these types of positions.

Now, one thing that’s important to point out is that the types of jobs I’m referring to here are analytical roles, not the types of positions where you’re almost exclusively making cold calls.

While sales-focused entry-level positions can be great opportunities for hungry young professionals that don’t care to learn about real estate investment analysis and just want to make money, the skill set you’ll build in these positions isn’t nearly as transferable to other parts of the industry.

Ultimately, if you want to maximize your exit opportunities, you don’t mind working long hours when you’re first starting out, and you want to build a technical skill set that could be applied to a variety of different jobs in commercial real estate, investment sales analyst roles can be great places to start.

Path #2: Debt & Equity Placement Analyst

The second path I want to mention is very similar to the investment sales analyst route, and this is working as a debt and equity placement analyst within a large brokerage firm.

These types of positions will have you working on finding both debt and equity for investment and development firms, and unlike investment sales work (where you’re typically just focused on valuing a single asset or portfolio of properties), these roles will expose you to the capital raising process that’s required to fund these deals.

This means you’ll learn about different commercial real estate loan terms, how lenders view risk, common JV equity partnership structures, and how all of these capital sources come together to fund a real estate deal.

If you plan to do your own deals at some point in the future, taking on a role like this can also be a great way to learn which levers you can pull to negotiate more favorable terms with both lenders and equity partners, and to build relationships with capital providers that can help you fund your projects.

These positions are also some of the very few analytical roles in this business that will expose you to a variety of different product types on a day-to-day basis, versus just one or two that you might typically work on in an acquisitions or investment sales analyst role, so these can also be great jobs to start out with if you aren’t sure where you want to focus.

Exit Opportunities

The exit opportunities in this part of the business tend to be slightly different than the exit opportunities you’d see in an investment sales analyst role, since you’re primarily working on capital raising for deals that have already been identified.

For analysts who decide not to move into production and shift gears out of working for a CBRE, JLL, or other big-name brokerage firm, common next steps include:

• Going to work for a bank or insurance company in a loan originations role
• Working for an investment or development firm in an in-house capital markets role
• Partnering with a handful of experienced acquisitions and asset management professionals to start an investment firm

Ultimately, if you don’t mind long workweeks, you want to sample a variety of different asset classes, and you’re looking to build relationships with capital providers that could fund your own deals in the future, a role in this part of the business could be a really good fit.

Path #3: Asset Management Analyst

The last path I want to mention here is on the principal (ownership) side of the industry, and this is an asset management analyst role within a real estate investment firm.

The application process for these jobs tends to be a lot less competitive than for acquisitions analyst roles, which are some of the most popular positions within this industry. With that in mind, if you have limited real estate experience through internships or academics, targeting these types of positions could make a lot of sense.

Unlike investment sales analysts or debt and equity placement analysts, asset management analysts also tend to have very manageable work hours and a lot of job security, even when transaction activity dries up. If you’re looking for a better work-life balance with a little bit more stability, an asset management analyst role could be a great option to consider.

Valuable Operations Experience

Even if you don’t plan to stay in asset management forever, these jobs can give you a ton of exposure to the operations of commercial real estate, in a way that brokerage and acquisitions roles just can’t match.

Working as an asset management analyst will give you an inside look into the performance of deals that are actually operating in a company’s portfolio, rather than the clean, pro forma numbers that were projected in an investment memo.

If you decide to transition into acquisitions, this will make your underwriting and valuations significantly more accurate. And if you decide to stay in asset management long-term, this will give you the skills you’ll need to progress to more senior-level roles more quickly. And if you plan to make your own real estate investments to build your personal portfolio, this will give you really valuable insights into what makes a good deal.

I would also say that if you do plan to invest in real estate at some point in the future, one of the most underrated parts of working in asset management is that you get to see what life is really like on a day-to-day basis owning and operating commercial properties.

Being a commercial real estate investor might sound like something you want to go all-in on, but until you’re actually in the weeds of things like negotiating commercial leases, working with construction teams, putting together budgets, and creating performance reports for investors, you won’t really know if this is something you want to commit to.

The main downside of these roles is that with the additional stability you’ll often see, you also usually won’t be paid as much as you would be when working in an analytical role on a high-producing brokerage team. But if you want exposure to the operations of commercial real estate, you want to maximize your exit opportunities, and you aren’t looking to take on 70-hour workweeks directly out of school, asset management analyst positions could absolutely be worth pursuing.

How To Build The Skills You’ll Need

If you want to make sure you’re prepared for the interview process at top commercial real estate investment, development, and brokerage firms, make sure to check out our all-in-one membership training platform, Break Into CRE Academy.

A membership to the Academy will give you instant access to over 120 hours of video training on real estate financial modeling and analysis, you’ll get access to hundreds of practice Excel interview exam questions, sample acquisition case studies, and you’ll also get access to the Break Into CRE Analyst Certification Exam, which covers topics like real estate pro forma and development modeling, commercial real estate lease modeling, equity waterfall modeling, and many other real estate financial analysis concepts that will help you prove to employers that you have what it takes to tackle the responsibilities of an analyst or associate at a top real estate firm.