Office Environment in Real Estate Dev Shop
Hey all,
I work in a real estate development shop in the Carolina’s. We have a strong track record, and I’m on some big multi family mixed use projects… but the office environment is extremely dull. Granted there’s only 15 people in the office and 50-60 people across offices. There is Little collaboration, most communication is done through email. The office is very very quiet, and that could be partially because everyone is so busy on calls. We typically provide comments on plans and designs via email rather than collaborating together (in real time) virtually or in person. After about a year in this role I’m learning that development is almost 90% phone calls and meetings.
I’ve worked at an agency debt shop and and acquisition firm, both were social and outgoing.
What is your experience in development from an office setting? Real time collaboration or a mix? Are people too busy in calls to engage in inter-office discussion or collaboration? Do you have an office culture? Please provide the size of your company and office In your response.
Thanks
Shop 1: National MF developer in regional office. 2-6 people in office in a given day. Could be very quite but still collaborated in person when we had the chance.
Shop 2: Local developer with house GC in same office. 10-20 people in office in a given day. Very collaborative, loud office.
Shop 3: National Developer / REPE. Very large office, very collaborative. Many in person meetings daily
What has been your favorite setting in terms of learning and office culture?
This makes sense. Think about it this way - your job as a developer isn't to actually produce anything. You are the connective tissue that allows information to flow freely and expeditiously between a large number of consultants, experts, and decision makers. You don't produce plans, you don't do renderings, you aren't actually constructing the asset, you aren't the source of the dollars being spent. You don't get to decide on the rezoning that gets done, you don't get to make a decision on what the new taxes will be, you aren't going out and finding potential tenants. You are, almost certainly, contracting that out. The one thing developers do is guarantee the various parts of the deal, which is why they get paid a lot, but as a project manager, your job is to be good enough at all of the above that you can filter out the irrelevant details and explain the vital bits to someone who has no knowledge. Your city councilman has no idea how to build an office building (or, probably doesn't). So you need to be able to explain to him the money, the time, the risk involved, so that they'll give you the density or the tax abatement that makes it worthwhile. Your structural engineer's priority is to design a building that won't fall down or shear - your job is to make sure they don't overengineer the project to the point it isn't financially viable. Silver at all trades, gold at none.
None of this really requires in-person contact, or not until the job starts. I guess your mileage can vary, but I'm not sure why that makes an office environment "dull". It seems to me that the actuality of work getting done is more exciting than the illusion of work getting done, with people bustling in and out of the office all the time. Much harder to accomplish anything that way.
Thanks for this response. This is a fantastic summary. Super helpful. Also, im copying and sending your response to my parents bc they can’t seem to grasp what I do.
Pros and cons for each. In general, I have found that having a mentor/group of colleagues that I work with in-person on a regular basis increases collaboration/learning by osmosis.
Thanks for this reply. Learning through osmosis is a priority for me.
I've got a year under my belt at a developer. I'd really consider ourselves quite collaborative and loud at times. Our GC is in the same office as us, so lots of conversations/meetings happening. On top of that our own team internally has quite a few conversations in regards to sales/leasing, development management, investor reporting, new deals, etc. Not everyone is in all of those meetings just the individuals who have the most responsibilities there. Prior to this, I was at a brokerage shop, that was chatty and social but less team-like since individually everyone was chasing their own deals as opposed on to being on the development team we're collectively working to complete a deal.
Thanks for the response. Which position do you enjoy more? Development or brokerage.
Development. I like the variety of the work and the creativity involved. I wasn't cut out for brokerage, cold-calling and being more sales-oriented is not my thing.
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