Reliance Housing Foundation is a nonprofit housing development organization whose mission is to provide fit, safe and affordable housing for low and moderate income people.
Reliance® has chosen to carry out its mission of providing “fit, safe and affordable housing for low and moderate income people” primarily by seeking out opportunities to acquire existing multifamily properties which it can enhance and preserve as affordable housing. In order to be socially and environmentally responsible, Reliance focuses its acquisition efforts in areas that have existing and complete infrastructure, including public utility capacity and adequate school capacity. Reliance also undertakes new construction development in areas that lack existing housing stock that is suitable for redevelopment. Reliance operates its business utilizing a hybrid format that borrows the best management practices from the “for profit” business community while strictly adhering to regulations governing “non-profit” entities. The overall direction of the organization is determined by its Board of Directors. Day to day operations are carried out by the professional staff. Reliance encourages community based input regarding the needs of our residents, particularly pertaining to project design and appropriate services.
Jeff Shetterly is a 2004 graduate of the Program in Real Estate. He currently serves as Real Estate Development Manager for Reliance Housing Foundation, Inc. The Program appreciates Jeff’s participation in the alumni interview listed below:
1. In your current position, could you please describe your day-to-day responsibilities? What are your typical work hours? What travel requirements do you have? Does your job require more interaction with others or more time spent at a computer?
Day-to-day responsibilities include: Overseeing development activities for affordable housing projects, including LIHTC (low-income housing tax credit) application process, financing, deal structuring, entitlements & approvals, project planning, budgeting, and construction monitoring as it relates to project funding draws. I work day-to-day with the CEO to take projects from acquisitions through construction and achieve “placed in service” milestones and occupancy stabilization.
Typical work hours: 45 hrs/week.
Travel requirements: Attend project development or “construction draw” or “pay application” meetings once a month, sometimes once every other month. With 2 projects under construction, I will travel up to 3 nights per month. During preconstruction/development phase, travel is less, maybe averaging 3 nights every 2 or 3 months.
Interaction: When I am not traveling I spend most of my time in my office, either on the phone with consultants and contractors, coordinating with office staff, or working through documents and emails on my computer. Our office is small - 4 people in our main location. I interact with everyone, but more frequently with the CEO usually twice a day at different periods.
2. What skills are most necessary for an aspiring student to be successful in your field? What personal attributes are most important?
Necessary skills: I find that the better people working in development are most successful if they have these skills/talents:
- Aspiration to be well-rounded at all facets of the development process (project management, finance, decision-making, construction, funding or tax credit application process).
- Good grasp of details, but ability to see vision/big picture and knowing when to stop at the detailed level.
- Persistence and ability to follow up with team stakeholders or consultants.
- Ability to switch gears at a moment’s notice.
- Well organized, but flexible.
- Composure, ability to build relationships at all levels – gov’t agencies, consultants, contractors, lenders, etc.
- Knowing when to lead or make decisions.
- What courses did you take at Cornell that you feel best prepared you to succeed in your position? What courses (if any) might you have taken knowing what you know now?
Courses I took that best prepared me:
- All core finance courses, including electives: Securitization, Hospitality RE Finance, Financial Statement Analysis.
- All real estate project development classes. I also took an additional independent study course with 2 classmates that we made into a real estate redevelopment feasibility study for a local, city-owned vacant site.
- Electives - Negotiations, Legal Aspects of Land Use Planning, Global Sustainability in Business (reinforced my passion for sustainability, green development).
- Real Estate Principles, Real Estate Law.
Courses I might have taken knowing what I know now:
- Entrepreneurship or other business-oriented courses.
4. Could you describe your career path? How does your current position compare to positions you held prior to attending Cornell?
My undergraduate degree is in Landscape Architecture. Prior to coming to the Cornell PRE, I worked for 6 years for 2 different landscape architecture/urban design/planning consulting firms. My work ranged from public park design to private resort design and private development land planning. It was this path through design that introduced me to real estate development and sparked my interest. My major motivation in the beginning of my path was learning and trying to figure out how to incorporate more sustainability into projects. There are several skill sets from being a project manager (as a design consultant) before graduate school that have helped me in my development manager roles. The difference with managing development projects is that there is much information and a much broader process to understand. There is much more focus now on trying to be as knowledgeable as possible about the entire development process and knowing when and what questions to ask your hired consultants and project stakeholders. In addition, there is more strategic thinking and decision-making on an everyday basis, which I enjoy. Another difference is my increased interaction with a broader range of professionals, from design and engineering consultants, to attorneys, to public agencies, to project financiers and government agencies.
5. How did you get hired into your first position after graduating from Cornell?
My plan coming out of Cornell was to move to the CA Bay Area and to set up a number of meetings before I arrived. The partner of the firm where I did my summer internship (Irvine, CA) “greased the wheels” for me by sending emails directly to the key people at local homebuilder companies and developers in the Bay Area. At that point, I followed up with each one and was able to meet with all of them (8 total). In addition to these meetings, I contacted other developers on my own, via email and follow-up phone calls to set up other meetings. One of the meetings through my internship contact turned into an actual interview. After 3 more interviews, over two months, I secured my job offer with Shea Homes. There wasn’t a specific position available, but because the market in homebuilding was booming and they liked my resume and skill sets, they created a position for me. I moved to CA in mid-June of 2004 and started my job in early September 2004.
6. What types of positions within your company would PRE students most likely be hired into?
“Real Estate Development Manager”, if another position was to ever be created.
7. What areas in real estate do you believe will experience the most growth in the coming years?
Since this is out of my general arena of knowledge, here would be my guess and opinion on the future. Based on the timing of the real estate cycles and crashes that occurred, it seems that the residential development and home building sectors will experience growth first, now that land is starting to be purchased again. I think the growth in green building in all sectors will continue steady growth as sustainable trends and green building methods become more affordable and feasible for developers. Based on the fact that commercial real estate experienced and is experiencing the recession at a later time than the residential sector, I see commercial development lagging residential. Also, it appears that commercial real estate will recover slowly due to the long projected slow job growth. Experiencing this last rough cycle taught me that this will occur again, but the questions will always be to what degree and how long until another recession arrives.
8. What have you found to be the most challenging and the most rewarding aspects of your work in this field?
Most challenging aspects:
Market & economic uncertainty, managing risk factors beyond your control such as entitlements and approvals, learning every week how much you don’t know!
Most rewarding aspects:
I really enjoy the big picture of the creation process of taking a project from an idea and the acquisition stage through final construction and occupancy of the end-users. More recently, I am enjoying exploring how to integrate the most up-to-date green technologies and alternative energies into our projects. One the most rewarding aspects for me in affordable housing is seeing the direct and indirect benefits that affordable housing projects provide to a community, observing families and people stabilize their lives so they can strive for better future prosperity.
9. What trends in the industry have most affected your company?
When the market crashed and the credit crisis emerged, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) legislation that passed, allowed the low income housing tax credit projects to continue. Because the tax credit syndication and investor market had dried up, this Act allowed the Fed to step in and purchase back the previously allocated tax credits to each state. When the tax credits were purchased, the funds exchanged provided the necessary tax credit equity to allow affordable housing developers to continue with their projects that had been previously awarded tax credits based on their project applications.
10. What is the best way for students to go about finding summer internships or full-time employment in your field?
I could write an entire paper on this subject! There are many ways to go about it. I would suggest using all of these methods to find/generate a position:
- Use the Cornell or PRE alumni network as a tool to “open doors”- it always helps to have a reference or have someone open a door for you.
- Identify the real estate sector in which you want to work – development, asset management, investment, finance, etc.
- Identify specific geographic locations to help narrow the search.
- Try and identify the best companies in those sectors and locations. Web searches and conversations with other PRE alumni in those sectors would be really useful. I used a particular city’s Business Journal “Book of Lists” or local industry publication to help identify top companies (Denver Business Journal, Charlotte Business Journal, etc.).
- Create a good cover letter with your resume to send to these companies and make sure to send it to the right person (try and avoid Human Resources), such as the department President, CEO, or key hiring person for that firm.
- You must follow up persistently, but politely, with phone calls a week or so after you’ve sent your cover letter. Without this step, you won’t get any response.
- Be willing to work for free if you can manage. Experience is worth more than money at this stage. If there is a company that you really like, it may be worth it. Try and negotiate some wage first, but have the “volunteer internship” option in your back pocket.
- If you can’t find a position with the company or sector you want, be willing to take any position that can give you some kind of valuable real estate experience. My story is an example – I wanted to work for a mixed-use or residential development company in 4-5 cities, but ended up working for an equity investment firm in Irvine, CA, which was not one of my targeted locations. The experience was very valuable for me and provided a good perspective for me on the investment side of development.
- All of these ideas can readily be applied to a full-time position as well. Make sure you are fully capable of marketing yourself and the Cornell PRE (most don’t know much about the program, depending on where you look).
11. In addition to the graduate coursework, how else might students gain direct/indirect experience before graduation?
While I experienced unemployment after the credit crisis, I found informational interviews to be a really valuable way to learn more about companies, sectors, and people. I found most professionals very open and willing to take time to meet for coffee, lunch, or just for 15 min at their office. Sometimes the conversations can be difficult based on the person’s willingness, so be ready with questions for them.
Another idea is to ask someone if you can “shadow” a real estate professional for a day or at certain meetings or events to learn more about what they do. This would be really valuable if you wanted to learn about what someone did in a specific RE sector that you didn’t know much about from a practical, day-to-day standpoint.
12. If you could do anything differently in your career preparation, what would it be?
I would have taken more of my own advice and talked to even more real estate professionals, whether in development or investment, to learn more about their positions, roles, and long-term career paths.
13. Can you recommend sources for more information (e.g., publications, books, journals) which students can read to stay abreast of the most recent trends and happenings in real estate?
There are many, depending on your focus. Try and focus on an interest (development, finance, asset management) and then seek out those industry-specific groups, or publications. ULI’s Urban Land magazine (must be a member) is a good publication. I am seeking out newer publications related to green building. Our company finds publications from the company Novogradac as useful on affordable housing.
14. Are there any professional associations that you consider to be particularly helpful?
Urban Land Institute (ULI), US Green Building Council so far. I’m new to affordable housing, so I am actively seeking more groups there.
15. If you were back in graduate school and looking for this kind of work, how would you conduct your job search?
I would use similar strategies that I outlined in question 10. It would be an easier search if I knew I was specifically looking to work for an affordable housing developer, as that step really narrows the search process. The next step would be to choose potential locations to live and work. After this, it would be a matter of executing most of the steps in #10, finding the best companies, focused on the things which most interested me.
