I’ve been in the real estate industry for a few years. I was a commercial leasing agent (didn’t do so well, mostly because I had a crappy boss introducing me to the industry, but even more mostly because I didn’t apply myself). I spent a few years as a leasing paralegal. Now I do property tax appeals, mostly for owner-occupants and landlords of industrial property, and multi-family landlords.
But I’m starting to realize (at the ripening age of my mid-30s) that I want to (and I think have always wanted to) be in development.
I’ve little in the way of assets, having spent the last few years pissing away everything I earned and having a good time. So I don’t really have any capital. I don’t have good credit, because of a few lean years where I tried working for myself or for commissions, and ended up not being able to pay all of my bills on time (they all ended up paid, mind you, but it wreaked havoc on my credit rating).
But I want to develop, damnit! I love real estate. I love buildings. I love the idea of becoming deeply involved in a project and seeing it through to completion, before starting all over again with a new piece of raw land. I like putting deals together. I love being creative and innovative and finding solutions and having ideas that either nobody has had or nobody has acted upon (even in my tax appeal job, I’ve come up with a couple of ways to reduce taxes that my boss, a seasoned member of the industry, says nobody has ever tried before, but which he’s quite excited about). I like to communicate and interact and get things done.
And I want to build buildings. Condos and multi-use are the kinds of buildings that attract me most.
Are there any developers here that can share with me the best way to get into the business? I’d ideally like to not have to take a huge pay cut to get into that part of the industry (currently earning about $55K - 70K, depending upon how profit sharing works outat the end of my first year).
By the way, if it matters, I have an undergrad in Finance, but finished it about 9 years ago and haven’t done smack with it since finishing school. Would take me a few months to get back up to speed on all my financial theory.