How do I get better at making offering memorandums
I’m currently an intern at a capital markets shop. I’m making oms for a producer and need some advice/ resources on what I should do to improve my technical writing and PowerPoint skills to make better

Also if anyones at a big firm ex CBRE/JLL etc what software do you use for your oms?
[{"id": "ib438dh", "text": "Learn and use indesign", "replies": [{"id": "ib5gzzl", "text": "This is the way", "replies": [{"id": "ib5h0tk", "text": "##This Is The Way Leaderboard  \n\n**1.** `u/Mando_Bot` **501219** times.\n\n**2.** `u/Flat-Yogurtcloset293` **475777** times.\n\n**3.** `u/GMEshares` **70943** times.\n\n..\n\n**465933.** `u/peskypeddler` **1** times.\n\n---\n\n^(^beep ^boop ^I ^am ^a ^bot ^and ^this ^action ^was ^performed ^automatically.)", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}, {"id": "ib5jw08", "text": "Or better yet, Affinity Publisher for a one time purchase that is a fraction of the cost and incredibly capable. And it ties in with Affinity Photo and Designer.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ib43fvf", "text": "Firstly fuck making OMs. Hate that shit. Second I have no advice other than make a checklist of common stats to look up so its easier to come up with stuff to write about.", "replies": [{"id": "ib80cvu", "text": "Nobody realizes how much time this will save in the long run. Think it\u2019s a quick process every time but a whole different ballgame when you\u2019re producing your own content without the help of an analyst", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ib44ebt", "text": "Amen brother!", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ib47dtt", "text": "Think about who your reader is (usually a combination of investors, brokers, bankers, and appraisers) and answer their questions before they need to be asked. \n\nAlso recommend doing two versions: a skinny one and a long-form one with sourced documents in an appendix. \n\nGood OMs make everyone\u2019s job easier.", "replies": [{"id": "ib4anm7", "text": "Great answer @ long appendix-ed version with documents. I'm a development analyst for an investor and I'll barely look at OMs unless they're well labeled with sourced materials (the vast minority of them). I'm just looking for primary sourced DD anyway.", "replies": [{"id": "ib4bs0x", "text": "What advise would you give to aspiring real estate analysts that are trying to break into the industry Richayyyy8? Thank you in advance.", "replies": [{"id": "ib4e7ca", "text": "Oh I love this, thank you for asking! I work in a very niche affordable housing market (LIHTC, Section 8, Section 42 housing). But maybe it's still applicable. Just #1 would be to always be bringing your investors to closing/finish line and keep that in mind at all times. Know they're the ones relying on you for answers and be able to back them up. The loans will come, they're just products. Just focus on your investors, your partnership agreements and be confident in arguments. 99% of the time your LPs are busy investors and just relying on you to check those boxes. Do it for them by any means possible. \n\nGood luck!", "replies": [{"id": "ib4ev3o", "text": "This is great advice. \n\nYou\u2019re customer service on the deal. An investor\u2019s best case scenario is that you don\u2019t screw anything up and they only have to talk to you when they want to.", "replies": [{"id": "ib5ut1e", "text": "Thank you Due_Turnover4914!", "replies": [], "depth": 6}], "depth": 5}, {"id": "ib5uo5w", "text": "Thank you for the advice!", "replies": [], "depth": 5}], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ib49huf", "text": "Used to work on this, not the most fun. Here's how I would order it:\n\n - executive summary\n - investment thesis (5-7 bullet points, why should I buy this property. Should speak to the biggest sensitivity of the target buying audience. Value add/core+? What can I take back to IC to show growth. How far below market are rents. Etc. Core? Show me lots of pretty pictures and give me a reason to peg general vacancy as close to zero as possible)\n - elaborate on each investment highlight (i.e. 15% mark to market opportunity on 30% of in-place tenancy within 18 months in low vacancy submarket/micro market/trade area). If your buyer is going to push rents, what kind of leverage do they have? How are they going to frame renewal conversations with their tenants to get the highest possible IRR / Yield / Multiple/ Etc. This part is where knowing the relevant buying audience is critical, because the sequencing of the investment highlights and the framing of the story, if done right, will trigger the magical concept known as myopic loss aversion. These acquisitions folks looks at dozens of not hundreds of deals in a year and most brokers are lazy. On the principal side there will be a decently well defined thesis with a lot of buzzwords (they love \"secular trends driving imbalanced supply/demand dynamics\") and the faster you can hit those buzzwords the more likely they are to read the rest of the OM. Which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how well crafted the rest of the OM is.\n - Finally after you've laid out the business case for your asset, now you need to speak to the relevant market. Again knowing your audience is key here. How you define your original thesis will drive interest at this point and your competitive set should be crafted to highlight the key characteristics of the asset you're trying to sell. High vacancy? Look at the size of your available spaces and limit the search to that. Oh yes it's a 25% vacant submarket but the 3k-5k SF range only has 2 availabilities, because that's the strongest demand segment. The vacancy is being driven by these big blocks of former owner-user spaces who have shifted to a different format because they have different economics. High growth market with lots of speculative construction delivering? Construction debt is floating rate and construction costs have gone up so maybe they underwrote a 7% unleveled yield but that same 7% is now 35% above average in-place.\n - after you've defined the relevant competitive set now you can back out a little bit and talk about the market. Most people think you need to follow the descending triangle of market -&gt; submarket -&gt; asset but if someone is looking at your property they've already decided they want to invest in your market. I've never seen someone say \"well fuck it let's just look everywhere\" because there are so many deals and so little time and every capital commitment is clearly defined. Like not only does this person need to buy class B office in Denver, they need to show how it meets very specific criteria like discount to replacement cost, depth of demand, solid mark to market. What is the average historic 20 years vacancy rate, what is it now, how much construction activity is there, and what kind of net absorption have we seen on average this cycle? At this point you just don't want people asking questions. The market should be at or near historic averages. If it's above they'll ask when will it go down, and if it's below they'll ask how far will it fall. Here you generally want them to just gloss over it and tell themselves they were right about this market all along.\n - lastly the financials should tie it all together. I never got traction with this but the story you just told over and over again should be annotated within the financials and rent roll. Not just what your GV assumption is but why. MLA is $27.50 psf which represents a 5% discount to market rents and 30% discount to new construction. GV is 7% vs. 5% for the competitive vacancies of spaces that are vacant/expiring within 18 months. Market rent growth is 4% in years one and 2 vs. an average of 7% over the last 24 months. By annotating the financials with the logical conclusions stemming from the rest of your OM you're going to drive pricing higher and create a more competitive bidding process. But here you're going to get pushback because this is a deviation from a proven formula and that scares people.\n\nLastly you need to understand where the OM fits into the process. Outside of producing this thing, keep your eye on the bigger picture and get into the mindset of your producer. Do they want something done quickly but not necessarily perfection, and how does this task solve their problems. How can you tee up the conversations that they're going to have to make them as easy as possible. Poke holes in your investment thesis and learn how to leverage its weaknesses to your advantage. With the high vacancy example, maybe there's strong gross absorption and you can show a path forward to capture the biggest chunk of that possible.\n\nI know that's a lot to take in. But coming from someone who has made his fair share of mistakes, if you put in the work and keep your wits about you, it will create opportunities over the long run. Just focus on doing the best that you can, don't be afraid of making mistakes, as bad as the consequences might seem in the moment, and push negotiations just a little bit further than you're comfortable with if you run the process well and can create the leverage. Best piece of advice I can give is 85% of leverage is a mind game and if you figure that out you've only got 15% left to solve for. I'll take those odds any day of the week.", "replies": [{"id": "ib4aali", "text": "That\u2019s good stuff thanks!", "replies": [{"id": "ib5ozsm", "text": "For sure man. One other tip is to look at an online tutorial for charts in excel. I don't think you'd need to read the whole book but \"storytelling with data\" is required reading for some consulting firms and the book really lays out how you can effectively quantify and communicate abstract concepts like mark-to-market, sticker shock, path of growth, etc.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}, {"id": "ib5sh0x", "text": "Others are recommending learning various adobe / or other graphics software.\nI don't recommend going that route unless you really want to be a graphic designer. You might want to ask to partner up with the marketing department for them to take your OM and give it the nice polish of a skilled graphic designer.\n\nlook at other big companies OM for creating your own template. Learn the key points you need to focus on to communicate to investors. Learn to use Argus that you can also offer as a download file to investors on sales packages.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}, {"id": "ib5stgi", "text": "Great advice. I\u2019d also add two things.\n\n1. Take the time to practice PowerPoint keyboard shortcuts as you go, will make you much more efficient.\n\n2. Broker OMs are EXTREMELY formulaic/standardized. Read through old OMs and learn the language and structure. You\u2019ll probably start to notice sections, structure and verbiage you can rip straight from old deals.", "replies": [{"id": "ib6ur9r", "text": "100% these two will save you months of time", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}, {"id": "ibj1099", "text": "This is the most thorough free advice I will ever see.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}, {"id": "ibjnabb", "text": "Reread this and wanted to add: what do I mean when I say leverage the weaknesses of your property's value proposition to your advantage. When someone reads the offering they are going to have questions, and the universe of questions in real estate is fairly limited. \"Why won't this tenant go somewhere else?\" Or \"What happens if the market enters a recession?\" A lot of brokers will just try to deflect the question or replace it with a question that's easier to answer. But that's a missed opportunity because each question is a natural segue, and it's most effective if you take a moment to acknowledge its validity and then explain how that facet can be used to drive a better risk/return profile. One big tenant with lots of term? Carve them out of the GV allowance. Short term or credit risk? Give me a reason why they're sticky in this location, or what differentiates this space from other similarly sized alternatives. Big tenants usually have expensive TI build outs. Show me how you can re-lease the space for the lowest $ outlay possible. What's the zoning designation here and what uses would it allow? Is there anything creative you can do with the amenities to drive demand? Lots of little tenants? Typically smaller offices are local, is this a better location for traffic / picking kids up at school / etc.? Do these tenants think about per square foot rents or do they just look at the monthly amount? Do these characteristics suggest that there might be a demand segment you can tap into to help reduce your vacancy (hot desks, hoteling, etc)?\n\nIn practice, \"yes, you would think the short term left on the lease of 60% of the space is a liability, but here it's an opportunity because this tenant's space is fully furnished and the property was designed for multi-tenant floors with a central core. Smaller suites in this market rent at a 10-15% premium and you can demise the lower floors as spec suites to drive speed to market and occupancy, which preserves your largest and most desirable contiguous space. There are only 2 tenants in the market looking for 100k SF yet there are 8 looking for 30-50k SF so the smaller size range is more marketable anyway. This strategy-if you don't renew a tenant who has been here for 12 year first-would allow you to capture a 10% higher blended rental rate, smooth out the expiration stagger of your rent roll, and lower your risk profile due to decreased exposure to one single tenant.\"\n\nEven if the vacate scenario would cost more money to backfill, you've just provided a path to not only increased rent but potentially exit cap rate compression. Are rate hikes a concern? Well you've smoothed out your yearly roll so (1) you have somewhat stable cash flow to lean on and (2) you can mark your suites to market over your hold period while still offering your exit liquidity a great occupancy story with well below market rates in place.\n\nBy using the weaknesses as a segue to connect the dots for the bigger picture, you've also done something absolutely key here - you've captured your subject's curiosity, and nothing captures attention like a good mystery. That's why the phrase \"you would think...\" is so strong. It's your hook. People who work I'm acquisitions tend to be very naturally curious and besides, having a more detailed understanding of an assets story improves investment decisions across the entire portfolio. So framing the asset story / tour / etc. In a mystery-reveal format is particularly effective.\n\nYou're using the same storytelling technique that Steve Jobs and Malcom Gladwell have used too. There's more color and nuance to how they do it but definitely check out the iPhone reveal video. It's not an OM sure, but it's a masterclass in persuasion. Definitely worth studying if you have the spare time.", "replies": [], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ib49y34", "text": "Copy others", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ib57onr", "text": "Download some OMs from high producing teams and try to formulate something similar with your own words", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "ib6i4no", "text": "I am in investment at CBRE and i work in marketing so i was hired to do this. I am doing about 2-3 weekly. I use indesign, we typically have:\n\n*Executive summary\n*4-5 Investment highlights\n*Property overview (specs/site plans, stacking plans, location)\n*Market overview, tenancy overview (rent roll, expiry schedule, top tenants,  tenant summary)\n*Financial overview (assumptions, cashflow etc) \n\nFeel free to DM if you have questions", "replies": [{"id": "ib80j6y", "text": "Do you work off templates? Every OM from you guys looks amazing by the way.", "replies": [{"id": "ib8kb43", "text": "Thank you ! \n\nDesign wise we always try not to but when we have too many at the same time and need to put them on the market quickly, we do. We use indesign, others teams within the office use powerpoint and templates but it gives you less freedom. \n\nContent wise, we recycle some of the market overview/location overview with up to date stats. Most of our clients only read/focus on the executive summary, investment highlights and financials and skip the rest.\n\nLast advice, photos are important and really tie everything together. We use ground shots, drones and sometimes plane too (for maps).", "replies": [{"id": "ib9r186", "text": "Great feedback! Thank you! Do you guys use Mapbox or something other software to get photos for the base map?", "replies": [], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "idojg8n", "text": "I\u2019ve been making OMs for 10 years now and am so burnt out on it. They are tedious, and they all boil down to the same bullshit.  I honestly feel like no one even looks at them. I get asked questions all the time about our listings that are clearly answered in the OM.\n\nI know this isn\u2019t what you asked, but I just felt like venting haha.\n\nSerious answer though is to just look through old OMs and then make a bunch of them. Clients will comment on what they don\u2019t like or what they want added, and over time you\u2019ll get better at knowing what they want to see. Hopefully, you have someone more senior reviewing your work and providing feedback. I did when I started, and it was tremendously helpful. Unfortunately, my firm has been so busy the last 5 years that the new guys don\u2019t really get much help anymore\u2026", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]