First Post

Hi all! While I may be late in joining the discussion, I’m excited to hit the ground running in terms of discussing my personal internship experience.  I’ve been working hard at my company, Clarion Partners, which is a leader in real estate investment management and have learned a lot so far.  I’ve always wanted to get into real estate and have tried my hand at different aspects of the industry in the past with my past two internships, but I really feel that my experience on the investment side has opened my eyes to what I want to do in the future.

 I work on the asset acquisitions side of the company, which works to purchase real estate for their different separate accounts, endowments, and pension funds that they have control over.  Being on this side of the business, I have started to learn what makes an investment a solid one and what you should stay away from.  One of the most important lessons that I have learned is that you can use the past to help weed out whether the investment is in a solid area of growth or not.  I have helped the company gain historical data by researching market trends as far as rents, sales, vacancy and development history are concerned and have put this information to use for them in different types of spreadsheets.  Without this data, there is no way that the company can make an educated guess as to what the value of a property is.

However, I have also learned that just having the data is not enough.  As one colleague told me this week, “It’s all about the numbers, but everyone has the numbers.  What sets you apart is seeing trends in the market before others.”  In order to see trends that others don’t see, I have learned that maintaining a personal connection with people that can help you is incredibly important.  Just this week, the company purchased an office building with the knowledge that Google would potentially be coming in as a nearby tenant since someone on the team was friends with the broker.  After purchasing the building, it looks as though Google will indeed be coming in, which will significantly raise the amount that they can charge for rents since it is a stabilized area now.  Little things like this can make a huge difference and helps me appreciate relationships with others much more.