I've had the fortune of connecting with a number of people all across Canada and the US as a
result of this channel and a few have asked me to share my story about how i got into the business.
Now if you're just looking for information on industrial real estate skip this video
and check out this playlist instead. I'll be adding more videos to it in the future but the
playlist will provide you with a solid overview of the industry. I still want to add some value in
this particular video so as i go through my story I'll answer two questions that are often asked. And
since industrial real estate is a subcategory of commercial real estate, I'll state these
questions a bit more broadly. First: do you need a degree to get into commercial real estate?
The second question: how much money can commercial real estate agents make?
So to start this story I need to go all the way back to 1999. I just finished my first year of
business school and I was working part-time at a restaurant at the same time. I must have made
a good impression as I was offered a management position that summer. I weighed my options and
decided instead of learning about business I'd just jump into it head first. So I technically
dropped out of college, but I'd like to look at it that I just took a really long hiatus.
I'll come back to that shortly. I enjoyed certain components of managing a restaurant but it didn't
bring me a ton of fulfillment either. After a year or so I decided I'd be happier bartending.
What can I say, I was 21, my prefrontal cortex wasn't yet fully developed! I bartended at night but was
still very much drawn to the business world with a few friends I bought and sold a handful of houses
and was during this period that real estate really piqued my interest. It led to me getting licensed and
I started as a residential agent in 2004. At the time I didn't even know what industrial
real estate was but commercial real estate -or at least the concept of commercial real estate -
was very appealing to me. Even as a kid I was fascinated with skyscrapers, so I started exploring
how it would look as a potential career path. I asked everyone i knew if they had any connections
in the industry and one of those conversations led to two interviews with commercial brokerages.
I scheduled those two interviews a couple hours apart but the first one went so well that I ended
up being hired that morning. That was in 2005 and have been at that same brokerage ever since.
So here's the answer to that first question: do you need a degree to get into commercial real estate?
Well the short answer is no. I did not have a degree and I was hired. In most states and
provinces you technically only need a real estate license in order to sell or lease commercial real
estate and there aren't any jurisdictions that I know of which require a degree to get a license.
The longer answer however is "maybe". One of the realities of the commercial real estate industry
is that most transactions are done through the large brokerages. It's also common for these
large brokerages to be very selective with who they hire, and you can see this for yourself: go
to any of the big brokerage websites and look at the profiles of the agents, you'll see most of them
have degrees. So that's why the answer to needing a degree is more complex than just a yes or no.
You technically don't need one to get licensed but you will likely need one to get hired at one of
the large brokerages. But don't let that hold you back if you don't have a degree as there are many
small and medium-sized brokerages who might not have the same stringent hiring requirements.
Let me know if you want me to expand on this more and I'll make a separate video about it.
But back to my story, I didn't have a degree but I had found myself as an agent working at
a commercial real estate brokerage. And while I thought it'd be working with big office towers,
it was a twist of fate that my new brokerage was primarily focused on industrial real estate.
Since all the experienced brokers in my office worked in industrial it made sense that I explored
it further myself. While there were some great mentors in my office, I made some pretty boneheaded
mistakes at the beginning and I was not making very much money. It was really tough grind getting
started. Instead of quitting, however, I threw myself entirely into it. My game plan involved three steps:
Become an expert in industrial real estate; become an expert in my local market; and build
as many quality relationships as I could. It was the journey to becoming an expert that
ultimately laid the foundation for this channel. I sought out articles, videos, courses and books
but I was surprised how little was available. I read one book that was essentially a 250 page
advertisement on why to use a broker. It became clear to me that industrial real estate was either
a topic you knew a lot about or virtually nothing about. As part of my pursuit of continuous learning
I eventually earned my degree and even went on to complete an MBA, doing it all
part time. I also completed both my CCIM and SIOR designations and this is a natural segue on how
much commercial real estate brokers can make. I'm going to use the SIOR website as this publicly
available information can provide an answer without any conjecture or risk of embellishment.
There are over three thousand SIORS in 42 different countries and in order to
earn the designation brokers must meet gross fee requirements in three out of the five most recent
years. In my market that gross fee requirement is three hundred fifty thousand dollars per year.
Now these are gross amounts, meaning that the brokerage will take a percentage of this, but even
if you assumed a brokerage takes fifty percent of all production and the broker made just the bare
minimum threshold you can see the opportunity to make a very good living in this industry.
I'm not sharing this information at boast but simply to illustrate that ordinary people like me
can be successful by executing on a game plan. My plan involved being an expert in the field and
I kept prospecting networking and building strong relationships along the way. Success
didn't happen overnight, but I went from being a junior agent struggling to pay my bills to one
where i've been a top 15 producer with my company, countrywide since 2013. It also afforded me the
privilege of building my own property portfolio. I have direct ownership in five properties and
I'm a limited partner in another. This takes me to right now and why I'm talking to you through
this camera. I wish there was more information available when i first started as i had so many
questions to ask about the industry both from a standpoint of being a broker and an investor.
I set up this channel to hopefully fill that gap for others who had the same questions that i did.
I might not be able to help you become a local market expert or to build your own relationships,
but I'm going to do my best to help you become an expert in industrial real estate. So thanks for
coming along this journey with me! If you have any questions on anything I mentioned in this video
please ask me in the comments below. If you made it this far too please check out this recent
market update I did. There are some noteworthy statistics and trends to watch and I think it's
going to be a very interesting year ahead. So thanks for watching, catch you in the next video!