Tier 1: BX, KKR, Brookfield, Starwood
Tier 2: Carlyle, Ares, Apollo, Bain
Tier 3: Oak Tree, TPG, Greystar, BentallGreenOak, Angelo Gordon
Tier 4: Tishman Speyer, PGIM, Sculptor, Warburg Pincus
Comment any changes you would make
| +51 | Leave brokerage to be GP | 12 | 11h | |
| +46 | New Comp Database - Google Form (Now with Data Validation) | 24 | 10h | |
| +24 | Seeking Career Guidance in Real Estate Development Post-Graduation | 3 | 1d | |
| +23 | Going out on your own | 4 | 15h | |
| +22 | REPE/Development GPA | 15 | 3d | |
| +21 | Real Estate = complicated + underpaid | 15 | 14h | |
| +17 | Fisher Brothers | 6 | 16h | |
| +17 | MSRE/MSRED with no RE experience; Naive to think I’ll land a job afterwards? | 4 | 4d | |
| +15 | Spreads over SOFR/UST | 1 | 15h | |
| +13 | How to recommend a RE investment? (Interview help) | 3 | 2d |
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Yeah bro lots of prestige up there. Why don’t you look into IB? Leave us alone.
nvm I’m dumb this was a troll post carry on
Excuse me, Cardone Capital?
Where would you put them?
Clearly an S Tier firm
Doesn’t sculptor have the highest comp across all of them?
It’s prestige ranking tho
I would put greystar one below with tishman, add Hines, and the others in tier 5
Since I work at Blackstone, I have more prestige than you, and therefore my life is more meaningful than yours. I demand you take down this post and lateral into LMM IB, thx.
Congrats on working in acquisitions!
how is warburg’s real estate arm been performing? how do they recruit?
It's China-focused from what I know. With everything going on I'd be surprised if it was recruiting anytime soon
Can you please shed some light on Warburg's positions in the Chinese RE market? Did they invest in Chinese developers?
I can really never tell if these posts are serious anymore and it makes me sad
Of course they're serious. It is positioned as a troll but seeing as this is probably the hundredth "joke" post about prestige in RE in the last 12 months, even OP cannot seriously think that it is funny anymore. What they're aiming for is to have the same dumb prestige conversation you'd have in IB, but give themselves the coward's way out of being able to pretend as if they were never serious in the first place.
Carlyle REPE hires people from like homebuilders and shit. These brands have y'all in a chokehold
Is home builder Land Acq not Cush? Heard those guys work like 40hrs and get 120 comp yr 1.
Land acq is the ultimate job if you’re on a good team can confirm
I work at Blackwood Kravis Hinesfield.
Feels like anyone who does these rankings (jokingly or not) probably don’t even work at these shops.
Marcus & Millichap?
💀
A bit of a contrarian view given this thread, but think rankings could potentially maybe be helpful if used in the right context... possibly. In all seriousness, it helps add another data point when making considerations on which firm to accept an offer from or recruit for. Obviously most prestige rankings are flawed cause there is no methodology for it and so its completely arbitrary case in point this ranking appears pretty off mark. Would help if we define prestige in terms of either: historical fund returns, the quality of the investors, access to capital or funds raised, pay and treatment towards employees, quality of the junior learning experience and thus ability to recruit to other firms, etc. In that vein, even a simple ranking of real estate firms by funds raised like the PERE 100 list is more helpful.
At risk of falling for the bait, would say it's kind of nonsense to compare a developer like Tishman Speyer against the more finance oriented firms that occupy the rest of the list. If you want to do construction or development, Tishman has one of the largest platforms and experience with large projects in the US alongside Related, Hines, Trammel Crow, and maybe a couple others. If you want to do acquisitions or AM, would steer clear since clearly you won't be spending as much time underwriting dozens of deals a month as much as - well say project or development management.
As far as the finance oriented firms, to be completely real feel like the experience is pretty similar except pay. As a junior, your going to be doing the same thing across all these shops (assuming ur in an acquisitions role) with maybe slight nuances. At there size, most deals are going to be run through a brokered formal process and deal underwriting is pretty straightforward. Biggest difference is likely pay, level of responsibility, or portfolio work vs. asset level work so do ur diligence.
The whole point is real estate is drastically different from traditional finance so a prestige ranking is irrelevant.
It's great to say "Blackstone, Brookfield and Starwood are the kings of REPE and are the most prestigious shops you can work at in acquisitions" - sure that's true at face value, but all those shops focus only on top down investing and are more focused on opco/portfolio transactions due to their massive scale. If your long-term goal is to become an entrepreneur (as many in real estate want to), then the experience learned at these shops is going to be FAR less valuable than working at a smaller GP raising SPEs for every deal and is focused on bottom up investing where what matters is the individual deal and specific real estate.
Same deal for development - you go to TCC, Tishman, Related, Hines, etc. and you get to work on the coolest, biggest projects with some of the most brilliant minds in the industry, but the scope of what you get exposed to early on is so small that it takes you 4-5x as long to become independently proficient as a developer (and because you have such a huge team behind you I would argue you never become fully self-sufficient).
If your goal is to climb the corporate ladder making rankings on this basis is great, but real estate is different in that that is not a lot of people's end goal and for those folks going to work at a smaller entrepreneurial shop where they can wear a ton of hats is going to be way more beneficial and the "prestige" means nothing.
I don’t know about other major developers, but that is absolutely not true about Hines. Every local office at Hines basically functions independently. If you work in development in LA, you basically only have a handful of people working on your project, and you are working on every piece.
Mr. Hines basically started Hines like a franchise business, where each region was in charge of their own deals, and fundraising, and execution. It’s changed some, particularly as they have gotten more into the fund business, but the regions are still very independent and have very lean teams.
How would you go about it if your end goal was to develop a huge project in your own one day? Are there smaller shops throwing together comparable deals to Hines, TS, TCC, etc to get in the weeds and get exposed to the whole project to be self sufficient?
I don’t have any insight into the content of the post but that doesn’t mean I still can’t express things regard to some of the posts made. Particularly those not staying on topic and berating OP and different groups he obviously subscribes to.
2024 and homophobia still runs this rampant, that’s what’s truly sad IMO.
OP your post is totally valid. You do you and let no one judge you or hurt you. Have a high curiosity and regard for prestige, date and make love to whoever you want, I respect and commend you for being you.
Always trust the guy that says “I don’t have any insight”
This is embarrassing
AEW?
One of the downsides of the RE thread is that whenever someone does a post on comp, "rankings", and "prestige", there's so many people that comment to troll on the post. Then they deviate to say that RE is more about the entrepreneurial spirit. Well for those wanting to build a career with an employer, these things all tie in, along with the general business opportunities built by working at a certain firm. WSO is a finance forum, who gets paid the most, who is deemed a better firm, all will be spoken about.
Regarding OP post, I'd personally put BX, Brookfield, Starwood in Tier 1. KKR hasn't proven themselves fully with their performance yet, though their growth is impressive. T2 = KKR, Apollo, Bain. T3 = Oaktree, AG, TPG, Carlyle, Ares, Sculptor. Beyond that, it can get very debatable. WP probably not in competition with the above (much smaller scale), PGIM shouldn't be here, Tishman is more known for development that PE, Greystar idk too much about.
The site ate my post, which is frustrating, but let me boil it down.
What criteria are you using to rank? AUM? Number of deals? Roles and responsibilities at each level of seniority? You've done nothing to back up the point, so even if we assume "prestige" rankings are useful (hint: they're categorically not), yours certainly are a waste of breath. If I make a list that is in every way the opposite of yours, on what grounds will you disagree? See how stupid this is?
Also, you very obviously don't know what a "troll" post is in this context. The OP? He might have been trolling. People shitting on this entire concept? That's called "educating".
If you care so much about the name on the door of your employer, and for whom you'll spend a career toiling to make wealthy, go work in finance! At least you can buy the stock! Pay is better, too
Nothing wrong with disagreeing about a list. Think there's value in sharing lists and explaining the methodology behind it so that ppl who are recruiting can learn more about the firm rather than just digging your head in the sand and taking a leap of faith. Even if I disagree with your list or definition of "prestige" (which I think is a stupid concept), knowing that you think ie. analyst experience at Apollo is more well-rounded since you'll just work on apts at Greystar is a helpful data point. While I agree name is not that important especially in real estate since your deal experience will look similar at a $500mn fund and $3bn fund (you are still looking at the same multifamily apt), telling a college student today that name doesn't matter at all would be pretty shit advice. For what it's worth, I personally believe the experience at any of the larger real estate shops is pretty much the same and not worth differentiating.
As someone who was recently let go from one of the listed firms and had two offers for substantially similar work roughly 6 weeks into recruiting, having certain names on your resume definitely helps. Both of them mentioned to me that experience at my last company was one of specific reasons they brought me in to interview. Sure, for being entrepreneurial it doesn't mean much, but, to counter what others have said in this thread, many people don't go the solo route and working for a top firm can be meaningfully different for your career. In those instances prestige, real or imagined, matters.
I disagree that even if you go the entrepreneurial route unless its small friends and family deals, your investors are certainly looking at who you worked for beforehand. Having a brand name helps regardless.
You name dropped a bunch of big investment managers then proceeded to lose all credibility by saying you don’t know much about Greystar. You just basically summed up the reason RE folks dont give a shit about ranks in on post.
It's a big industry and it would likely be difficult to know someone or have worked with every large fund in the US. Would love to hear if you have anything to say about greystar or any of those other firms.
It’s so sad to see that this nonsense has spread to the RE forum… The IB and school forums have always had clowns arguing JPM vs GS or Notre Dame vs Georgetown but thankfully it’s never made it to this forum.
Prestige is a made up metric. People at TPG will have effectively the same exit ops as someone from BX. In a really shit job market like now, it matters a tiny bit but things will get better and you’ll look like a clown for trying to figure out if KKR is more prestigious than Sculptor.
I would definitely take Bain, Carlyle, KKR, BGO, TPG and Warburg off the list. These are relatively recent entrants into the RE space, just because they are prestigious firms doesn't make their real estate groups prestigious. TPG real estate doesn't really exist anymore. I would add some of the OGs such as Westbrook and Walton Street and would add Baupost
He should add Matthews REIS! ;)
Can you expand on TPG? They recently raised a $7Bn fund
Carlyle is a shitshow
how so?
Prestige is nice if you value status over money. I know one deal shop with a head dude and, like, three people underneath him with $15m+ promote in one deal alone. No one knows their "brand name" but a 20-something acquisitions guy from a no-name college and no IB experience is going come with millions when they sell.
Curious where Macquarie REPE falls on this
Thoughts on MSREI?
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