OK, here’s the deal: I really like real estate, but I’m not a happy-go-lucky sales kinda guy. I mean, I can work with people and talk with them and whatnot, but I don’t have 20,000 contacts in my phone or spend half my waking hours on Facebook. I just have my close set of friends and acquaintances and that’s that.
I love travelling around and looking at listings and properties. I think old buildings are interesting and I like to work on houses. If I won the lottery tomorrow I’d start buying houses and fixing them up and renting them out. The only thing holding me back is my stupid crappy job and the lack of financing.
Appraisal sounded interesting, but it takes a couple years of basically slave labor (an apprenticeship) where I live to be certified and the nature of that job is changing so fast due to technology and the flatlined real estate market that it is too much of a gamble to take on.
I don’t seem to be a match for the internships I’ve seen at school (for leasing agents or property managers) so I don’t know what other areas to look into. Does anyone have any ideas?
What are you studying? What do you really want to do? Commercial, residential?
There are lots of things in real estate that don’t involve sales. You might consider getting a job/internship with a REIT. There are lots of them around. Of course, you would have to decide what sector you want to get into, retail, office, multifamily.
There is also the securities end of the business. Working as a research analyst for a firm that deals with REIT shares or mortgage backed securities. Or going into a rating agency like Moody’s or S&P that rate real estate securities.
A lot of people I know started out as accountants/clerks working for REITs or real estate investment firms. After some time, they moved into asset management, acquisitions type stuff.
I have colleagues who went to law school and ended up working for the real estate practice at their law firm. Then they went to work for investment firms.
You could get a job with a homebuilder. From there, you can learn about the business and move into the development side.
Don’t turn your nose up at a property management gig either. There is no better way to learn about the operations than getting right in the thick of things. If you want to know why rents are falling in an area or how much it costs to do certain kinds of rehab, the first person I would ask is a good property manager. And I am here to tell you that there aren’t enough good ones out there. There are a bunch of boobs who looked good for a while because the market was strong and they stepped in shit. But now that things are tough, they are sitting around sucking their thumbs and wondering why tenants aren’t beating a path to their door.
There is no one way to get into this business. I started as an internal auditor. I have colleagues that started in IT, HR, the mail room and customer service.
What about inspection? That’s different from appraisal; home buyers would hire you to inspect the property before purchase. It’s a physically demanding job and I imagine it would suck in the winter, but it sounds like it might be right up your alley.
My home inspector was awesome. I’ve never owned a house before so he showed me some important things, like how to change the filter in the furnace. I think he mostly works by word of mouth since he’s not affiliated with any of the home inspection companies and is definitely an independent operator.