One Day, One Job » real estate

eRealInvestor

Willy Franzen — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:11:36 +0000

This morning I was reading a New York Times article about how some of the “super rich” are being hit hardest (at least in terms of total dollars lost) by this recession. A lot of this has to do with heavy investments in real estate. As we all know, real estate has not been the place to be lately. The good news about the bad real estate market is that it’s leading to all kinds of innovation. There are a ton of cool real estate startups, and I just came across another one called eRealInvestor. They’re based in San Francisco, and they offer a suite of tools that allow those who still have it in them to invest in real estate to be much smarter about it. Since I’m not a real estate investor, I don’t fully understand what all of the tools do. However, it’s hard to argue with a data based approach to buying and selling real estate.

eRealJobs

Since most new college grads don’t have the cash to start investing in real estate, they usually have to work their way into the world of real estate in a different way. A job at a company like eRealInvestor that is bringing innovation to the industry is a great way to do that. Their Jobs page doesn’t show much in the way of entry level jobs, but their postings on Startuply do. Current opportunities include Online Marketing Expert, Flash Developer, and Sales Executive. I’m sure they also have some Web Development positions available—even if the ones that are posted are a bit more senior. You can apply online, so get ready to invest yourself in real estate investment.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you think investing in real estate is a good idea?

CB Richard Ellis

Willy Franzen — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:55:21 +0000

Considering the fact that I drove by a house in Michigan that was on sale for $12,500 just a few days ago, it’s pretty obvious that the real estate market still has some rebounding to do. There has been a lot of hurt in the industry over the past couple years, but maybe things are looking up. A friend who works at CB Richard Ellis let me know about a position that they’re trying to fill, and after I checked their Careers page I saw that they’re hiring for more than 200 positions. Considering the fact that they just went through a round of layoffs at the end of last year, I’d say all those job postings is probably a good sign for where the company (and maybe the economy?) is going. If you have heard of CB Richard Ellis before, you should know that they’re headquartered in Los Angeles and they’re “the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm (in terms of 2008 revenue).” Clearly $12,500 houses aren’t a problem for them.

Be with CBRE

CB Richard Ellis is a huge company. Not only are they world’s revenue leader in commercial real estate, but they also happen to have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 employees and 300 offices. That makes finding an entry level job with them a little bit intimidating. It’s hard to know where to start, especially when they don’t have anything tailored to recent grads on their site. They do have a Career Paths section on their site, but it only allows you to self-select as Experience Professional or MBA. Neither of those pages offers much information that would be helpful to a recent grad. This means that we’re going to have to dive into the dreaded job search function to find entry level jobs at CBRE.

Unfortunately, CBRE’s job search function doesn’t let us link to specific jobs, and there are 200+ jobs to wade through. CBRE does have jobs all across the country, so getting ultra-specific with your query still should turn up a few results that might interest you. CBRE’s job areas include Administrative/Operations, Business Development, Client Services, Commercial Real Estate, Executive Management, Facilities Management, Finance/Accounting, Human Resources, Legal, Marketing/PR/Communications, Project Management, Property Management, Purchasing/Procurement, Research Management, Risk Management, Sales/Brokerage, Technology, and Transaction Management, so there really is something for nearly everyone. There’s also the position that my friend told me about: Marketing Coordinator (.doc file) in Woodbury, NY. You can apply for this specific position by sending your cover letter and résumé to joscelyn.wippern@cbre.com. For other positions you can apply online through CBRE’s Applicant Tracking System, or you can apply through e-mail to cbreresume@cbre.com. If you still have questions about the CBRE hiring process you can check out their Careers FAQ.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you know about CBRE?

Starwood

Willy Franzen — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:42:12 +0000

Having a girlfriend who is a consultant, I’m often subjected to hours of consultant-speak. It’s not really English, as it consists mostly of acronyms. One thing consultants seem to talk about a lot, even though they don’t have an acronym for it, is the American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Card. It’s apparently by far the best credit card for the consulting lifestyle (especially when you work for a firm that almost exclusively puts you up in Starwood hotels). Since I’ve been hearing the Starwood name a lot, and I’ve had a few people recommend their Jobs to me, I thought it was time to take a look at what kind of entry level jobs are available with one of the world’s largest hotel and leisure companies. In case you’re not familiar with the Starwood brand, they’re the company behind Sheraton, Four Points, aloft, W Hotels, Le Meridien, The Luxury Collection, Element, Westin, and St. Regis. All of them are nice places to stay, and a few of them are about as trendy as you can get when it comes to hotels – check out aloft.

Be a Star at Starwood

Starwood gets hospitality. They also get entry level recruiting. They make it dead simple for college students and new grads to figure out how to land a job with them. They have a College Recruiting page that outlines the 4 ways of getting a job with Starwood. You can go through Campus Recruiting or apply online, and you can apply for their Management Training Program or opt for Direct Placement. The Management Training Program seems to be geared towards students who are graduating from hospitality programs, but that’s not explicitly stated as far as I can tell. The program lasts 6-18 months and concludes with placement as an Assistant Manager or Manager in the hotel where the trainee trained. Applications for the Management Training Program haven’t been opened yet, but they say that you will be able to apply online in early 2009. If you go to one of the schools on this list, you’re better off talking to your Career Services office about when Starwood will be on campus than waiting for the online application to be posted.

If the Management Training Program isn’t for you, there’s another option. You can check out Starwood’s Career Paths and apply for Direct Placement. You have to go through a general job search function where you can narrow down from the 1,650 jobs posted by location, hotel, or job title. This is the one area where Starwood’s Careers site stumbles a bit. The job search function isn’t very good. Unless you enter specific criteria, you’re going to be inundated with results that are going to be hard to scan. Still, if you want a job in a posh hotel in an exotic location, that’s the best way to find one.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you stayed at any Starwood Hotels?

Rent Marketer

Willy Franzen — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:04:31 +0000

Now, I usually write themed posts for holidays, but since today is only a holiday for me and those whom I force to celebrate (it’s my birthday), I don’t have a themed post. I will, however, be announcing a contest later today where we’ll be giving away an iPod touch in celebration of my birthday. We also have another great internship opportunity for you today. Last week, a woman named Stephanie Johnson from Rent Marketer e-mailed me and told me that she had “relied on One Day, One Internship (and Job) to get ideas about what a great internship looks like.” She wanted us to share the details internships with you, and since flattery works we featured Rent Marketer’s internships on One Day, One Internship today. While we were researching them, we noticed some great jobs listed on their Careers page, so we’re telling you about those here. Rent Marketer is in the business of helping property owners post their rentals to dozens of sites all at once. Repeatedly posting For Rent ads can be mind numbing (kind of like applying to a lot of entry level jobs), and they do it all for you in a simple and cost effective way.

Market Yourself to Rent Marketer

When you start researching Rent Marketer, one of the first things that you’ll see is that they were founded by ex-Googlers; in fact, most of the press that Rent Marketer gets is in reference to the founders’ former employer. Nobody wants to live in the past, but you have to like that Rent Marketer is using any attention that they can get to promote their product. Their rental advertising platform is about as simple as it gets – you give them the info, and they post it on rental sites for you. Since most college students and new grads are tenants and not landlords, you may be more interested in their rental search engine, RentBits.

Rent Marketer is headquartered in Englewood, CO and has apparently carried on with the Google workplace philosophy – they have a casual environment with massages and foosball. They also have some great jobs that look to be perfect for new college grads. Their Careers page shows 3 jobs, all of which require little or no prior work experience. These include Jr. Software Engineer, Java Programmer, and Account Specialist. The job descriptions are thorough and should give you a good sense of what kind of skills you should have if you’re going to apply. If you think that you’ll be a good fit for one of these jobs, send a cover letter and resume to careers@rentmarketer.com with the job title in the subject line.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

RentMarketer.com
Jobs at Rent Marketer
About Rent Marketer
Rent Marketer FAQs
RentBits.com (Rent Marketer’s Rental Search Engine)
Rent Marketer’s Blog
Management at Rent Marketer
Rent Marketer in the Press

What do you think of Rent Marketer? Leave a comment.

Tishman Speyer

Willy Franzen — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:09:49 +0000

A lot of you probably started college with a strong interest in real estate. It’s understandable if much of that interest has evaporated as a result of the direction that the real estate market has taken over the last two years. New York real estate seemed to be the last bastion of hope, but with the fall of some major investment banks and a lot of fear on Wall Street, even that seemingly unstoppable market is starting to slow down. Still, if anyone can weather this storm, it’s hopefully the firm that did the biggest real estate deal in US history (the purchase of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village for $5.4 billion). The firm behind that deal is Tishman Speyer, and even they seem to be struggling a bit as of late. Still, they make moves with the long-term in mind, and they’re prepared (both mentally and financially) to take a short term hit. Real estate isn’t the hot place for careers right now, but it’s still a field that is loaded with opportunity. There will always be people making money off of real estate deals, and there’s no better place to learn how to do that than Tishman Speyer.

Don’t Give Up on Real Estate

A look at Tishman Speyer’s properties tells you everything that you need to know about the firm. Just look at what they own in New York City or London. If that doesn’t make you drool at the prospect of landing a job at Tishman Speyer, we don’t know what will. We can’t access Tishman Speyer’s job listings, but that doesn’t really matter. They have a separate page for their Analyst Program that is directed towards developing “the next generation of real estate professionals for the company.” That means that they’re looking to hire new college graduates, and a few quick Google searches confirms that they’re still making their campus recruiting visits despite the economic conditions. They aim to do interviews in October and November, so now is the perfect time to apply for a job with them.

Tishman Speyer seems to do most of its entry level hiring through on campus recruiting, but they don’t provide a list of campuses that they are visiting. That means that you’ll have to check with your career services office to find out if Tishman Speyer is coming. If they aren’t visiting your campus (or if you missed them), you can send a cover letter, transcript, and resume to Eleonora Rabinovich at erabin-recruiting@tishmanspeyer.com. We’re not sure which locations they put in Analysts in, but Tishamn Speyer is headquartered in New York City with domestic offices in Atlanta, GA; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; Orange County, CA; Stamford, CT; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, DC. They also have 18 international locations.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you still considering a job in real estate or are you staying away?

Redfin

Willy Franzen — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:00:05 +0000

What’s the job market look like for a new college grad who wants to go into the real estate industry? Craptastic. Unless you’ve got a great connection or know something we don’t (which is actually pretty likely), you can head for another industry to get some work experience or you can take a stab at Real Estate 2.0 jobs. We’ve already looked at Zillow.com as one company that has insulated itself from sub-prime woes by breaking away from the traditional real estate business model, and today we’re going to look at another one. Redfin is an online real estate brokerage. They currently operate in only 7 markets, but they’re gaining ground by offering new services to people who think a realtor isn’t worth 6% of a house’s final sale price.

Zillow and Redfin are both Seattle based, online real estate companies, so there must be a big rivalry, right? Wrong! In fact Redfin has integrated Zillow’s features into their website. Still, people (like students at a college career fair) sometimes overlook Redfin’s revolutionary simple business model for the flash of Zillow and their Zestimates. Zillow will make you an informed real estate buyer or seller, but Redfin could potentially save you tens of thousands of dollars in your next real estate transaction.

So what exactly is Redfin doing that makes them so different? They offer many of the same services that a traditional real estate agency offers (they list your house online, aid in negotiations and contingencies, and assist with paperwork), but their rate structure is completely different. If you’re selling a house, you can do it for a flat fee. If you’re buying, Redfin will refund 2/3 of their commission (which is up to 3% of the sale price, so the refund is up to 2%). So while most real estate transactions result in up to 6% of the sale price going to real estate agents who sometimes don’t do much to really help their clients (read Freakonomics for more on how your realtor’s interests may not align with yours). Beyond their game changing rate structure, Redfin also offers some really great web-based tools that are integrated within their house listings. Unfortunately, their listings aren’t compatible with Safari, which is lame. Although their website and their rate structure are what make Redfin a true threat to traditional real estate agents, it’s their Satisfaction Guarantee that shows how serious the threat is – we’ve certainly never heard of a traditional real estate agent guaranteeing that you’ll be happy with his or her service. How can something so simple be so innovative for an industry?

If you’re intrigued by Redfin’s offerings, you can look a little deeper and read about how Redfin works. If it’s their business model that interests you, why not read their comprehensive first-year report. You might also want to look at the posts on TechCrunch that are tagged for Redfin.

Redfin’s jobs website shows off a great college recruiting program. Typically, they hire for 4 entry-level positions: Test Engineer, Developer, Product Manager, and Marketing Analyst. It’s a great mix of jobs for students whether you have a computer science background or studied liberal arts.

Another great thing about Redfin is that they’re all over the blog thing. There are few better ways to gain insight into what a company does and what it’s like to work there than reading blogs written by real employees. One post that we especially enjoyed was this one on a college intern’s experience at Redfin. Well any company that has a great internship program should also be a great entry-level employer (that’s the whole point of interns, right?). Take a look at all of Redfin’s blogs: Development Blog, Los Angeles Blog, Orange County Blog, San Diego Blog, San Francisco Blog, and Seattle Blog.

We know your Mom thinks you should take a job with a well respected company with a long track record of success, because she thinks it’s safe. Well look who killed the real estate market. It was those big, conservative banks – the safest of the safe. She’ll tell you that start-ups are too risky for someone with nothing to fall back on. We think it’s too risky to miss out on the future of a company that is about to eat traditional real estate brokers’ lunch.

Note: On April 23rd we revisited entry-level jobs at Redfin.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Do you have any other ideas for real estate jobs that are insulated from the sub-prime “problem?” Leave a comment and tell us what you’ve come across.

Zillow.com

Willy Franzen — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:00:21 +0000

When you started college, the Goldilocks economy (not too hot, not too cold, but just right) was cooking along with a nice balance of fear and optimism. You knew from freshman year that you wanted to get into real estate because, as they say, they’re never making any more of it. Well if you’ve been paying any attention to CNBC lately, real estate is not the place to be looking for an entry-level job. So how can you find a company in the industry that hasn’t cut out new hiring because of the down market?

Go where the innovation is. The Internet has changed how real estate transactions happen, and much of the industry is way behind the times. The guys who brought travel to the Internet with Expedia.com are now making moves in the real estate industry. Zillow is a service that helps consumers overcome the problems of asynchronous information when they are buying or selling a house. Zillow offers a free valuation tool that uses public information to estimate the value of any home in the United States. They also allow you to post your house for sale on their site at no charge.

So how does Zillow make money? Advertising. Skeptical of that business model? Lehman Brothers isn’t. Like we already said, the real estate industry has a lot of catching up to do online, and Zillow is poised to be one of the big winners in the next few years – credit meltdown or not.

You can be a winner too. All you have to do is land a job at Zillow. Not only will you gain experience in the real estate industry while others are biding their time in other fields waiting for the housing market to pick up, but you’ll also be working for 2007’s Best Seattle Start-Up (they were runners-up for best office party, coolest office space, best high-tech company and most laid-back atmosphere). Want proof? Check out their Halloween costumes, office activities, and after-work get-togethers. They’re even taking a different approach to recruiting.

So what do they have available? Unfortunately they don’t have a special section of their Job page for college students, but they do have a few positions that you might be qualified for. These include Data Analyst, User Experience Developer, User Experience Designer, and Graphic Designer. There is also an Advertising Analyst position that we’re pretty sure is too advanced for most new college graduates, but take a look anyways. We’ve also heard from various Internet sources that Zillow has done on-campus recruiting in the past, so there may be other entry-level job opportunities that aren’t listed on their website.

There are two more things about Zillow that we loved, but we weren’t sure where to mention them. First, on their Who We Are page they profile their team with head shots and a blurb – under each head shot is an “About My House” link with a blurb about the person’s house. This adds a personal, but still relevant, level that you don’t see on many corporate websites. Second, we’ve heard rumors that people at Zillow are mildly obsessed with the letter Z, and we found this picture to confirm it. The first person to leave a comment saying what we’re talking about will get an automatic entry into our contest (with a really awesome prize) that starts next week.

Note: On April 21st we revisited entry-level jobs at Zillow.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Does Zillow really have company paintball outings? If you can verify, leave a comment.