Advice or pointers on how to get a job with a developer

[Josh Kundrat]

Hello,

I have done a few flips, got my real estate license and ventured in to the world of being a landlord, but my ultimate goal would be to work in development, possibly one day doing my own small projects, but I would be really happy just to work for an experienced developer for the foreseeable future. And I was wondering if any of the amazing and super knowable folks on BP had any suggestions on how to go about trying to get a position with a developer around Chicago or North-west Indiana. 

[Scott Choppin]

@Josh Kundrat

As a developer in training, you want a job that exposes you to the maximum amount of the development cycle with the maximum possible learning velocity (time and speed). You will need to learn all of these components of a development deal: land acquisition, site selection and sourcing, zoning and entitlements, architectural design management, deal underwriting, financing, construction, leasing, property management, and sale or asset management.

I would suggest working for companies that already develop the types of projects that you are ambitious to build in the future. For example, I come from a family of real estate developers, but I was ambitious to learn rapidly and work for others in the MF development domain, so I obtained my first job (asst. project manager) for a division of KB Home (Kaufman and Broad Multi-Housing) that developed in-house apartment projects. I started as a rookie APM, and left there as a seasoned senior project manager running the entire project myself from finding the land to putting the project into long term asset management phase. This gave me the exposure to all aspects of a development deal on multiple larger ground up development deals.

Search for companies in your local area: google search, look for ads that are selling or renting new projects and identify the developer, read news of company announcements, and most importantly, build your networks. Networks could be: local builders exchange, local and regional homebuilders association, search on websites for NAHB, NMHC, ULI, attend real estate meet-ups, attend real estate conferences. You're near Chicago, I speculate that there's a ton of space to build your networks in a large urban center like Chicago.

Your likely job title will be: assistant project manager, analyst, development associate.Whatever it is, you will be working for a more seasoned project manager or senior project manager. Know this: that person is worth their weight in gold, and can be the primary person that you run things past or ask questions as you move through your day. My best days, were when I would be tasked with managing a project (or part of it) and could at the end of the day ask a TON of questions about how to do it, what happened, what went wrong, what could be done better, and what could be done better than anyone else. I used to carpool home with a very seasoned PM, and we would be in the car together for 1-2 hours each day, and that poor guy got squeezed dry like a sponge by me for knowledge and information. He and I still laugh about it today, but damn that was the best learning I ever did.

One caveat, it will take some time. I spent over 5 years working for others, before deciding it was time to go out and form my own development company. You should more than likely work for a larger company, they have jobs that are specifically related to development, versus construction or some other non-development role. 

An alternative could be that you intern for a small development company, with the express purpose of gaining development experience, or at least that's how you should communicate it to them. You may have to work for free or at low cost to the small company, as they will be very sensitive to cash flow and costs.

The development business is one of the most complicated businesses that I know of combined with risk in land markets, underwriting, financing, and construction. While each component part is not overly hard to understand, there's a ton of steps, and each step has risk embedded in it AND you are dealing with people all along the way: brokers, land sellers, planners, politicians, bankers, construction folks, renters, property managers, and buyers. So your ability to both understand the process better than anyone else AND to convince other people to go your way, agree to allow you to do your project, or support your project with investment, is of paramount importance.

If you want to see the process in action, see my thread about a real world example from our development portfolio.

I am an offer of help, feel free to reach out if needed with questions.

Thanks

Scott