What does a real estate practice entail? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Have an interview coming up with a V100, what does it entail? What do people like (not like) about it? My search skills aren't so great but I tried to search for this already. Apologies if I missed it.

[Anonymous User]

From my experience as a SA doing mostly RE, I can offer a quick thought.

For my firm RE was broken into three parts: development, finance, and purchase/lease agreements. From my observation and talking to partners at the firm, development was basically dead and will remain dead or slow for the foreseeable future. All three parts are contract driven, so lots of due diligence/doc review, but in the context of real property. Definitely one of the slower/less glamorous practice areas out there.

[Anonymous User]

From my experience as a SA doing mostly RE, I can offer a quick thought.

For my firm RE was broken into three parts: development, finance, and purchase/lease agreements. From my observation and talking to partners at the firm, development was basically dead and will remain dead or slow for the foreseeable future. All three parts are contract driven, so lots of due diligence/doc review, but in the context of real property. Definitely one of the slower/less glamorous practice areas out there.

Hmm, my firm is hopping and hiring two grads for the real estate practice. Bank real estate workouts, sales and purchases of distressed property by those with cash (great deals out there if you have cash), lease workouts and extensions or vacate agreements, membership disputes in LLCs which own real estate - very fast paced and clients have very short deadlines.

[Anonymous User]

From my experience as a SA doing mostly RE, I can offer a quick thought.

For my firm RE was broken into three parts: development, finance, and purchase/lease agreements. From my observation and talking to partners at the firm, development was basically dead and will remain dead or slow for the foreseeable future. All three parts are contract driven, so lots of due diligence/doc review, but in the context of real property. Definitely one of the slower/less glamorous practice areas out there.

Hmm, my firm is hopping and hiring two grads for the real estate practice. Bank real estate workouts, sales and purchases of distressed property by those with cash (great deals out there if you have cash), lease workouts and extensions or vacate agreements, membership disputes in LLCs which own real estate - very fast paced and clients have very short deadlines.

Original anon here. I did forget workouts, but I was told that well was drying up (or at least it isnt going at the pace it was ~2010 to keep the practice area afloat). Now that I think about it, Im not sure why I chose this practice area....

[TTH]

From my experience as a SA doing mostly RE, I can offer a quick thought.

For my firm RE was broken into three parts: development, finance, and purchase/lease agreements. From my observation and talking to partners at the firm, development was basically dead and will remain dead or slow for the foreseeable future. All three parts are contract driven, so lots of due diligence/doc review, but in the context of real property. Definitely one of the slower/less glamorous practice areas out there.

Hmm, my firm is hopping and hiring two grads for the real estate practice. Bank real estate workouts, sales and purchases of distressed property by those with cash (great deals out there if you have cash), lease workouts and extensions or vacate agreements, membership disputes in LLCs which own real estate - very fast paced and clients have very short deadlines.

Original anon here. I did forget workouts, but I was told that well was drying up (or at least it isnt going at the pace it was ~2010 to keep the practice area afloat). Now that I think about it, Im not sure why I chose this practice area....

The glitz and glamor of developing shopping centers.


although TBF, it seems like Developers were making staggering bank pre-ITE.

[BeenDidThat]

From my experience as a SA doing mostly RE, I can offer a quick thought.

For my firm RE was broken into three parts: development, finance, and purchase/lease agreements. From my observation and talking to partners at the firm, development was basically dead and will remain dead or slow for the foreseeable future. All three parts are contract driven, so lots of due diligence/doc review, but in the context of real property. Definitely one of the slower/less glamorous practice areas out there.

Hmm, my firm is hopping and hiring two grads for the real estate practice. Bank real estate workouts, sales and purchases of distressed property by those with cash (great deals out there if you have cash), lease workouts and extensions or vacate agreements, membership disputes in LLCs which own real estate - very fast paced and clients have very short deadlines.

Original anon here. I did forget workouts, but I was told that well was drying up (or at least it isnt going at the pace it was ~2010 to keep the practice area afloat). Now that I think about it, Im not sure why I chose this practice area....

You guys could, like, be from different cities. There's this place called California. They're kinda tight on cash there. Not too many deals are poppin in real estate. Then there's this place called Texas. The population's up several million in the last couple years. Lots of deals there.

[Anonymous User]

At my firm:

-LOTS of buying distressed property; good amount direct from the FDIC

-LOTS of hotel/casino sales/purchases/development

-Land use work is almost totally dried up because it is so tied to development in general

[Anonymous User]

From my SA experience it seemed like the RE attorneys were sort of generalists- there wasn't as much niche specialization like you see in m&a/finance/securities groups (at least at the associate level). This was actually very appealing to me because I liked dealing with a wide range of issues on every deal instead of getting pigeon-holed into some narrow focus early on.

Structurally, most of the acquisitions/sales are similar to most corporate deals because you're basically just buying and selling properties instead of companies (real estate is often on a significantly smaller scale, but not always). There are obviously issues unique to real estate, but I mean, a contract's a contract and there's going to be a ton of tiny clauses and terms involved.

I wound up accepting an offer in my firm's RE group because: (1) I LOVED the people in the group; (2) the work was pretty equal (in terms of enjoyability) to stuff I did in my other transactional group; and (3) there are literally no mid-levels left in this practice area at almost any firm because of the purge. Seems like this should be helpful for job security, early responsibility/client contact, and ultimately lateral options if partnership does not work out.