Going Res to Commercial
Just curious if anyone has done this or has tips?  

A friend who has been a residential agent for I'm not really sure how long (probably in the 10 year range I'd guess) has a lot of interest in commercial and asked if he could sit down with me to review some deals I've done and learn more about how to get into commercial.  

Honestly everyone I've seen try to do this has failed wildly with I think only one exception.  Retail seems to be the easiest IMO to do something like this in, but its not what I do and I honestly don't know a lot about it.  I do investment which would seem a bit harder.  

My plan as of now is to review valuing some apartments/strips, how negotiations went down, the different issues that came up pre close, etc.  

Any good learning resources I can send him?  

I want to be as helpful as possible.

[{"id": "cs4ze12", "text": "I considered it at one time because my education in public relations is much better suited for commercial real estate. (My attention span, on the other hand, is not.) \n\nCCIM's education would be a good place to start. If an agent can get through the class, it will give him/her a great idea on which type they like better. I made it about halfway and thought, \"thanks, but no thanks.\"\n", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cs6veky", "text": "I understand going from res agent to com agent might be hard, but does anybody have any input/opinion on how hard would it be to go from res agent (2-3 years experience) to the finance side of CRE (analysis/research for development firms, brokerages etc? ", "replies": [{"id": "csevcak", "text": "I started out in Commercial RE as a research analyst for a major CRE firm (think international). I found that the best way to enjoy your job in research, provide valuable data and information to your brokerage team and stay relevant/successful was to be able to tell a story. Basically, anyone can be taught to run numbers and anyone can look up news articles and put 'two and two together'-but the magic of success comes from when you can find interesting insights in the numbers and then tell a tantalizing story about it. For example (real scenario):\n\nI was working a retail angle for a custom report a little over a year ago. I noticed that the data I was pulling for stores within a 3 mile radius of a particular set of malls (across the state of FL) kept bringing up 3 retail box  stores that were always in close proximity. this interested me so I pursued the data further and found that a new 'bell cow' (one of the three stores) had entered our market over the previous 18 months. Pre-recession Target stores and Publix (grocer) were usually the signifier that an area was going to see a boon in retail rates over coming months but since the recession (in my area) that was no longer the case-they were more cautious. Well what I found was that Nordstrom Rack had become the new 'Bell Cow' and whenever one was located within 3 miles of a mall (size of mall was immaterial), the next 18 months showed an effective gross rental rate increase of over 16% for ALL shopping plazas within 1 mile of the Nordstrom Rack. I gave this to our broker who represented Nordstrom Rack (at the time- not sure if he still does?) and we used the data in their favor to negotiate a lower initial lease contract for the storefronts he represented- because we could prove to LL that they would see the $$ benefits in a long-lasting and material way through other new and renewal lease contracts over the next 18-month period. Additionally, the info was used in property management and landlord rep pitches in the office as well in regards to the surrounding 1-mile of retail centers to gain more business and increase our market share in retail.\n\nThat was a long-winded story but it proves my point that if your friend is any good at story-telling (and if they were a good Res agent, they probably were) then he/she can definitely find a way to get onto a team in CRE where their skills in story-telling can merge with their skills in research and finance to make a compelling case for hiring purposes. Also, it makes the job a lot more fun! Good luck to them!", "replies": [{"id": "csf0c68", "text": "hey! thanks for the detailed response!, so do research analysts also ever do like financial modeling, like working on seeing if the numbers make sense or if the investment is worth it, or are those left to \"financial analysts\"? and do u think financial modeling by analysts are more common in development firms as they deal with a lot of aquisitions whereas brokerages deal more with sales?And hey just one q, I am not able to find out whats the average salary for analysts in development/investment firms. I know in brokerages that they are not paid that well as brokers are the top dogs there, but in dev/investment firms do u think analysts are a little more respected and paid more? ", "replies": [{"id": "csgnzg7", "text": "No- research analysts typically don't do that sort of thing. I would say yes development companies would tend to have more financial analysts, as well as investment companies but the big brokerages all have them too. ", "replies": [], "depth": 4}], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}, {"id": "cs9jdan", "text": "If your friend has ever done their own investments, than I find it isn't too difficult to make the jump.  When you have experience with all sides of deal making (as a buyer, a seller, and an agent), you tend to have the tools already in place and from there you just have to mold them to whatever asset class you go after in commercial.\n\nWhen someone does have the tools already in place, the next biggest obstacle I've seen is adjusting your mind to the new numbers ..... when your dealing with 1500 sq ft houses for 10 yrs, all of a sudden trying to wrap your head around a 560k sq ft warehouse, can be daunting.   Same goes for price ..... flipping $50k houses for years is a much different feel than $9.5 million.\n\nNow all that being said .....IT'S JUST NUMBERS !!!   There is no reason they can't do the jump unless they are pigeon holed into the residential mindset. &lt;I'm not sure if I answered anything in this rant&gt;", "replies": [], "depth": 1}]