Just moved... need some help..

So I recently moved to the US (about 4 months ago) and got a job at a relatively big REIT as an analyst. No legit reason for why i joined the company except the fact it was the first job to come by, and i had continuously heard stories of people not being able to find anything for months (both on this forum and from friends) and didn’t wanna end up that way. If i didn’t take this one, it would be even harder for me to get another job considering I had no american experience or education. I knew i got extremely lucky and didnt wanna give this up.

The problem is I don’t wanan be stuck in real estate long term. Another problem is i dont know what i wanna go into. Back in Pakistan, the financial services industry wasn’t nearly as developed as it is here. So it was easy to just hop from one segment of the industry to another, without having much experience in that segement as long as you had a basic idea of what you were doing and had the basic financial concepts down. Obviously thats not the case here. Each segment of the industry (such as equity or FI) is big enough and unique enough that its kinda hard to switch around too much. So questions:

  1. How long do i have before i get the “REIT” tag??

  2. Any websites, articles, nething that would help me gain a better, more detailed understanding of each of the segments so I can figure out what exactly it is that i’m interested in and see myself doing… I remember someone had mentioned Vault here. Any other ones??

  3. And how hard do you guys think it’ll be for me to switch over from a REIT to an investment management company? And what would help me to make that switch?

Any suggestions/help will be appreciated!!!

Well, you can manage your personal portfolio and do analysis there. You can do the CFA program, which will let people know that at least in principle, you can do other kinds of analysis. As an industry sector, this might not be a bad time to get into REITs. Things are bad, but they appear to be bottoming or soon to be bottoming. It may be a while before real estate prices actually rise, but REITS can make money on rental income too.

Many REIT are primarily rental income if I recall correctly.

Yeah, contrary to what most people assume (and seemingly logical) is that REITs are actually not very correlated with real estate prices. The focus is more on management, and solid cash flows rather than subjective valuation of real estate. I’m nowhere near an expert, and don’t know much about this area…but I’ve been doing some readings on it and that’s what I’ve found out.

I manage a tactical asset allocation process and we have REITs in it. Case Shiller data shows housing prices still moving down (albeit less quickly than before), but the REIT index is up almost 20% since mid November. REITs and real estate prices are not highly correlated at all, because management can make money through rents. Whenever housing prices do recover, then REITs will get a boost through capital appreciation too.

That’s pretty interesting. It looks like under some circumstances, REITs might actually have a negative correlation with real estate (since people rent more if they cannot afford to buy houses). I never thought about it that way.

That’s pretty interesting. It looks like under some circumstances, REITs might actually have a negative correlation with real estate (since people rent more if they cannot afford to buy houses). I never thought about it that way.

Yes that may work for REITS that have mostly residential properties. Commercial-heavy REITs are usually at a disadvantage in current environment since there are more spaces available and tenants have the power to negotiate the rents down or just leave. Thus, u end up with lower real estate value as well as a lower rental income… I forgot to mention my qualification Bchadwick… I have completed all three levels of CFA already…

anyone???