Real Estate Investment Analyst job description
Duties: Provides analytical support for property acquisition or development; conducts market research studies; prepares budgets and accounting reports
- Alternate Title(s): Real Estate Analyst, Financial Analyst, Property Analyst
- Salary Range: $55,000 to $90,000
- Employment Prospects: Good
- Advancement Prospects: Good
Prerequisites:
Education or Training—Four-year degree, master’s degree or M.B.A. a plus
Experience—Three to five years experience in real estate, finance, or capital markets
Special Skills and Personality Traits—Strong organizational skills and research skills; strong written and verbal communication skills; working knowledge of financial terms and markets
Position Description
Successful real estate development depends on solid numbers-crunching analysis of potential opportunities. Real Estate Investment Analysts, or project analysts, concern themselves with evaluating the feasibility of a particular development—whether it will pay for itself in a given number of years. Analysts collect and interpret large amounts of proprietary and public information, prepare reports, and work closely with real estate brokers, agents, development managers, and the sales staff. They are highly organized and detail-oriented in their work.
Real Estate Investment Analysts provide analytical support for property acquisitions. They evaluate the merits or risks of a particular investment, both long-term and short-term. They review and analyze real estate property operating statements. They prepare journal entries for operating activity and changes in valuation. They work closely with the asset management and acquisition team to identify properties suitable as additions to the real estate investment portfolio.
Real estate analysts do more than assemble data into a spreadsheet and submit reports. They ask some hard questions and stay with the process until answers have been secured and verified. By taking a broad approach to gathering data, they are able to develop possible trends for the investment opportunity, based on the indicators that make up the analysis.
Real Estate Investment Analysts also perform research on currently owned properties. They review the portfolio of owned properties to identify properties that are underperforming, and they assist the accounting staff in preparing data for quarterly reports to senior management. Real Estate Investment Analysts are sometimes involved in database management, trend analysis, and preparation of new business presentations to senior management, developers, or clients.
Real estate analysts focus their attention on preparing financial analysis, environmental assessments, and land-use issues.
Real estate his primary duties typically include the following:
• assisting in financial analysis of existing portfolio assets
• conducting pre-acquisition due diligence or market research of real estate development opportunities
• preparing financing packages for prospective lenders
• coordinating lender visits to development sites and investment presentations to lenders
• qualifying underwriting, financial modeling, scenario analysis, budgeting, forecasting and reporting on investments in office, hotel, retail, and residential properties
Real estate investment analysts typically work a 40-hour week in an office setting. They may work longer hours, including weekends, during peak production periods, for example when working on a project deadline.
Salaries
Salaries of Real Estate Investment Analysts usually range from $55,000 a year for individuals starting their career to $90,000 or more. Analysts employed in the larger banks, which typically approve the multi-million dollar loans to real estate developers, can earn upwards of $100,000 a year. They may also earn a performance bonus tied to the success of the department or the lender’s overall return on assets in a particular year.
Employment Prospects
Qualified financial analysts are always in demand. Analysts who can grasp the differences between market sub-sectors (shopping centers or office markets, for example) are more important than ever in commercial real estate. Opportunities for real estate analysts with some experience analyzing real estate investment opportunities are expected to remain strong over the next five to 10 years.
Some job opportunities for entry-level staffing come about through staffing turnover. More applicants are interested in the development and leasing side of the business than in a supporting role as a back-office numbers cruncher. Brokerage teams need an experienced supporting team at the back office so they can go out and bring in new business.
Advancement Prospects
Real estate analysts can advance to positions of increasing responsibility, such as senior analyst or research director. Advancement may require upgrading job skills to stay current with industry trends and changes in regulation. An M.B.A. or master’s degree may be required for advancement to management positions. Some of these positions may require a master’s degree in real estate or a related field of study
Education and Training
Most employers look for people with a four-year degree in accounting, business, or related academic courses and a proficiency in financial analysis. Candidates should be detail-oriented, with in-depth analytical aptitude, excellent written and verbal communication skills, and strong knowledge of Excel spreadsheet program and ARGUS real estate database software.
While technical skills are important to the job, there is more to the job than knowing how to read spreadsheets and interpret financial data. If you don’t have any ARGUS training, you can pick up the basics by attending an ARGUS class or taking an online course.
The software is more user-friendly today, and courses are available from real estate schools. A general background in real estate fundamentals how properties are valued and investment returns measured can be a good place to start.
Experience, Skills, and Personality Traits
Some prior experience analyzing real estate investment reports is normally a requirement, usually one to three years. Analysts should have good analytical and communication skills and an ability to create accounting journal entries based on their analysis. Also important are good decision-making skills and problem-solving skills and a proficiency in working with spreadsheet accounting programs.
Strong communication skills and report writing are integral to the job. Investment analysts use real estate-specific analytical software such Skyline, Tim-berline, PROJECT, or ARGUS, and a working knowledge of these software programs would be very useful. Also important is having an ability to produce designs and graphs for presentation and some proficiency with Excel spreadsheet software.
