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#LookUpNY

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I spent much of this last weekend wandering around the streets of New York City. I walked aimlessly down the cobbled-stone streets of Tribeca, among the cast iron buildings of Soho, and through the tree-lined streets of the West Village. Inspired by TOWN Residential’s social media campaign #LookUpNY, I made a conscious effort to do just that. I left my iPhone behind and soaked in the skyline.

Although I’ve walked these streets a 100 times before, looking up made it feel like I was there for the first time. Most people, me included, are glued to their smart phones as they commute to work or run errands. Rarely do we appreciate the history and architecture that surrounds us each day.

Look Up New York is an awesome social media campaign celebrating New York City Architecture with the goal of educating and engaging New Yorkers in thoughtful and creative ways.

Each day for 90 days, Look Up New York tells the stories behind the city’s most notable buildings. Anyone can contribute to the campaign by posting photos to  Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #LookUpNY.

Visit the LookUpNY website to view submissions from Instagram and Twitter, see an interactive map of photos, and learn about the storied history of some of New York’s most fabled buildings.

When you’re out and about this week, I challenge you to #LookUpNY. Trust me, that posture changes everything.

A Note to College Seniors: There’s no Wrong Place to Begin a Career in Real Estate

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As college seniors approach graduation and prepare for a career in real estate, many are left without job offers. It wasn’t too long ago that I was a college senior and had no clue what I was going to do post-graduation.

For much of the senior spring semester I had a laser focus on obtaining a position within real estate finance or development. After countless informational interviews, that’s the only position where I thought I should be. The problem was that by mid-2008, the equity markets were frozen and new development had come to a screeching halt. I graduated with no position and had to revert to my fallback option – working with my uncle at a two man investment firm. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I learned about brokerage, construction, and property management, three pillars of the real estate business.

Sexy? No, but do I use the knowledge I obtained chatting with brokers, spending time on construction sites, and dealing with tenants, you bet.

The point is that you shouldn’t worry if your first job isn’t the sexiest, most sought after role. In real estate, there is no linear career path. To those seniors: Use your network and find a job. Don’t be picky; you can learn a lot in many varying settings.

When you inevitably do land a job, you should move vertically, horizontally and jump around within your own company, while being open to outside opportunities, if you want to be successful.

Make sure you don’t take yourself too seriously or think you are too good for any task. There’s a lot to learn.  You will make mistakes. Be willing to work hard, network, try to keep learning, and don’t ever accept it when somebody says do it because that’s the way it’s always been done. A big part of this blog is to get people to challenge assumptions. Using common sense is really the toughest thing to get people to learn.

Real estate can be a challenging and rewarding career path. So my advice to those who are graduating and want to be in real estate….find a way to get into real estate!

Floored by Real Estate Innovation

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Real estate is generally considered a late adopting business full of dinosaurs who don’t embrace new technologies. While widely true (ok, almost entirely true), it certainly didn’t feel that way at Art Assets event highlighting real estate innovation. The event featured Riggs Kubiak of Honest Buildings, Ben Miller of Fundrise, and David Eisenberg, founder of Floored, a revolutionary 3D mapping program.

While Ben and Riggs are real estate practitioners who saw inefficiency in the business and set out to improve it, David is a non-real estate guy who’s shaking up the business.

Jason Freedman, founder of the offices space search firm 42 Floors, wrote an interesting article on Hacker News about the type of people working at 42 Floors. The first seven people hired by the company had a combined 0 years of commercial real estate experience. He saw this as a positive because he believes that in order to transform the real estate business, you need people who are not educated in how the industry has performed up until now. This was important to him because he’s not simply trying to improve the industry; he’s trying to flip it on its head.

This got me thinking about the current real estate tech landscape and the types of people who are shaking up the business. There are a few key areas where innovation is happening in real estate:
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Career Advice from 3 College Seniors Who’ve Landed Jobs with Top Real Estate Firms

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I have a lot of calls with college students looking to break into the real estate business and young professionals looking to grow their careers. The advice I give is typically grounded in personal experience. However, since joining Atlas Real Estate Partners two years ago, I haven’t had any direct exposure to the job market.

My knowledge of the current hiring environment is mainly hearsay. So I reached out to three college seniors who’ve successfully navigated the hiring market and landed jobs with top tier real estate firm and asked them to share their advice.

Here’s what they had to say:
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Career Series – What it’s Like Working in the CMBS Group of a Major Investment Bank

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Over the past few weeks I’ve spoken with numerous college seniors looking to break into real estate. Each of them is happy to report that the hiring market is beginning to pick up; they’re seeing more opportunities, getting more interviews, and generally have increased optimism.

One sector of the market which has seen a lot of hiring activity is CMBS. It was very timely that Kevin Flammia reached out to me noting that he had just transferred into the CMBS group of a major investment bank. I asked Kevin to share a bit about the process of breaking into CMBS and his experience thus far.

Enter Kevin:
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