Hiring the Right CRE Team
ORLANDO–Though commercial property markets are prospering, finding the right mix of people to work in commercial real estate remains a challenge, executives say.
“It’s extremely competitive,” said Jilliene Helman, Founder and CEO of online real estate lending marketplace RealtyMogul.com, Los Angeles, here at the recent Mortgage Bankers Association Commercial Real Estate Finance/Multifamily Housing Convention & Expo. “We’re a technology company. Real estate roles are hard to recruit for and technology roles are three times harder than that. We’ve seem compensation rise tremendously compared to just two years ago.”
Helman said because RealtyMogul’s starting salaries have increased so significantly since it launched in 2014, “we had to review our salary structure and increase salaries for existing people [to match new hire salaries] because we didn’t want them to be recruited away,” she said.
Jeffrey Majewski, Senior Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer for Capital Markets with CBRE Capital Markets, Houston, said CBRE increased its production force by 20 percent last year. “And for every producer we hire we add at least one person to support that producer,” he said.
Majewski said adding that support staff represented a challenge in some markets. “On the west coast it’s a very tough market when looking for someone with some experience as opposed to an entry-level analyst,” he said. “And New York is the toughest place to recruit. But outside of the major metros there seems to be a bigger talent base to draw from.”
Many CRE firms look to outside recruiters to find talent, Majewski said. Some look to their competitors. “It’s an aggressive market,” he said. “It’s always been that way. We realize there’s going to be a give-and-take, but there seems to be a bit more of a recruiting effort hitting us over last six to nine months.”
Commercial real estate was not known as a particularly diverse industry in the past. But analysts said that is changing.
“It’s hugely important to put your money where your mouth is when it comes to diversity,” said Robert Little, Chief Investment Officer with Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers LLC, Hartford, Conn. “Our firm has become much more diverse up and down the entire organization. We want to get best candidates we can and we want a diverse slate.”
Little said he sees the vitality that diversity brings to the real estate investment management firm. “Our three most recent analyst hires were from India, Iran and Korea,” he said. “That brings energy to those of us who have been around for a long time.”
Helman noted that people often tend to recruit people similar to themselves, “so you need to hire diverse people and they will bring in diverse people.”
Majewski mentioned an MBA initiative-CREF Careers–that can boost a firm’s cultural diversity as well as bring in younger workers. “When we looked into it, we discovered that colleges were promoting real estate development as a career rather than mortgage banking. So we launched career nights with area universities, starting with Georgetown and Harvard Universities. As we speak CBRE is hiring someone we met in Georgetown as a visa sponsor. It’s a great way to connect with diverse college graduates. The more we tell people about the $2.7 trillion business that mortgage banking is the more successful we’re becoming.”
Majewski said the committee plans to expand the number of universities it partners with to host CREF Careers information sessions “because now we have the playbook. It works, and the best part is it’s now a cookie-cutter process.”
