Commercial Real Estate Summer Intern Review

I spent my internship across two teams: Industrial & Logistics Capital Markets and Business Rates, where I sat on the investment side advising landlords. My role in both was to do the analytical and support work that sits behind live deals, so no two days looked exactly the same.
In Capital Markets, most of my time went on the financial models used to underwrite industrial assets. I'd build tenancy schedules for multi-let and single-let properties and work through the metrics that actually drive value, things like WAULT, reversion, NOI against ERV, and the assumptions around rent-frees, voids and re-letting capex. I used comparables to pin down ERVs and yields, looking at location, specification and unit size. Alongside the modelling, a big part of the week was keeping on top of what was happening in the market: uploading availability, under-offer and completed deals onto our internal databases, cross-referencing that against external data, and chasing vendor agents by email and phone for updates on who was bidding, at what price, and whether assets were selling individually or as a portfolio. I also helped put together a disposal brochure, working on the location, investment highlights and reversion analysis, and got involved in underwriting a live portfolio disposal.
Business Rates was a different rhythm, a mix of research, site visits and client work. I spent time getting to grips with the case law the team uses to build its arguments, and the mechanics of how rates actually work, rateable values, the multiplier, and the lag between when a property is valued and when that feeds into the rating list. On site I'd do the referencing myself: measuring units, taking photos, zoning the space and working out total areas. Back in the office I used our internal rating databases to pull BA references, rateable values and addresses, spot deletion and savings opportunities, and work out how much a client could save, which is what the fee is based on. I also helped on an RFP for a large landlord and worked through void mitigation and the different reliefs available.
The common thread across both teams was taking messy property and market data and turning it into the numbers and story that a decision actually gets made on.

Although a fair amount of the work was fairly tedious, it had to be done properly by someone, because the rest of the deal relies on it. Since I was also one ach team for 2 weeks, I couldn't get involved in each deal that much.
In Capital Markets, a good example was maintaining the market data: uploading availability, under-offer and completed deals and cross-referencing it all against external sources. It's not glamorous work, but if that data is wrong then the team is underwriting off a false picture, so I was trusted to keep it accurate. The same went for the tenancy schedules and models I built, and the vendor-agent chasing I did by email and phone, none of it is exciting in isolation, but it all feeds straight into how an asset gets valued and priced. I also contributed to underwriting a live portfolio disposal and helped produce a disposal brochure, so I could see how the small pieces I was doing added up.
Business Rates was similar. A lot of the referencing, extracting BA references and rateable values, cross-referencing addresses, checking which properties qualified for relief, is painstaking and repetitive, but it's exactly what the liability calculations and the client's savings depend on. I worked on the analysis behind an RFP for a major landlord, including the numbers that determine the fee CBRE charges, and did the on-site referencing that feeds those assessments. Getting any of it wrong would have flowed straight through to the client, which is what made even the dull parts feel like real responsibility rather than busywork.
So while the day-to-day wasn't always thrilling, I came away understanding that the unglamorous groundwork is genuinely load-bearing in these deals, and that being trusted with it was a form of responsibility in itself. I was well supported throughout, with senior colleagues reviewing my work, but the outputs were real and mattered.

One of the main things I took from the four weeks was getting used to working in an office and being part of a team. Work is quite different from school or university. The information isn't always laid out for you, and you often aren't told exactly how to do something, so I pushed myself to ask for help whenever I needed it, stay curious, and constantly ask for feedback. That did a lot for my communication skills, both within the team and when dealing with external agents.
On the technical side, I came in with some theory from my degree but left with a much better sense of how it's actually applied. In Capital Markets I became more comfortable with financial modelling in Excel, and I now understand the metrics that drive value rather than just recognising the terms, as well as how the different yield measures and investor risk and return profiles fit together in practice. Being able to talk to my line manager and other colleagues about how a deal works through from underwriting to the bidding process gave me a mental model of how all these pieces connect, which I didn't really have before.
Business Rates stretched me in a different direction. I'd never worked with the rating system before, so learning how rateable values and the case law come together was largely new, and the site referencing gave me a practical, hands on skill set I hadn't developed anywhere else.
Underpinning all of it, my attention to detail improved a lot. The work relied heavily on cross referencing and investigation, and because small errors would have carried straight through into the analysis, I built the habit of checking things properly rather than assuming they were right.

A lot of the support you get comes down to how willing you are to ask for help and put your hand up for work, and I tried to make the most of that throughout. Both of my line managers were extremely friendly and welcoming. Each of them took me for coffee chats early on and talked me through what they do day to day, as well as their own routes into real estate, which gave me a much better sense of how people actually end up in the industry. Even when they were busy, and they usually were, they'd check in on how I was getting on, and I always used those moments to ask any questions I'd been saving up.
The two teams supported me in slightly different ways. In Ratings, my line manager was keen to make sure I saw the foundational groundwork the business is built on, so I got proper exposure to things like site visits and the underlying case law rather than just the surface level tasks. In Capital Markets, I had a wider group of people to learn from, and the two graduates on the team in particular were really helpful and happy to explain things or walk me through how something was done.
Overall I felt well looked after in both teams. The guidance was there whenever I needed it, but it also rewarded being proactive, and the more I asked and got involved, the more I got out of the experience.

The culture in both teams was really friendly and warm, which made a big difference to how quickly I settled in. I could always have a good conversation with my colleagues, whether that was about the work itself or just day to day chat, and the senior members of the team were approachable rather than distant. On one day they even took me out for lunch, and there were a few trips to the pub over the weeks as well, which made it easy to get to know people properly outside of just sitting at a desk.
Within the office, it was a very open and relaxed environment. I never felt like asking a question was an imposition or that I'd be judged for not knowing something, which mattered a lot as an intern, because it meant I actually asked when I was unsure rather than guessing. That openness is a big part of why I got as much out of the placement as I did.
The two teams had slightly different feels, mostly down to size and the type of work, but the underlying atmosphere was the same in both: collaborative, down to earth and welcoming. It came across as the kind of place where people got on with serious work without taking themselves too seriously, and that's an environment I could see myself enjoying long term.

On the whole I found most of the internship genuinely interesting, and the people were a big part of that. Both teams were welcoming and easy to get on with, and having colleagues who were happy to explain things and bring me along made a real difference to how much I got out of it. I also really valued getting out of the office for site visits, which broke up the desk work and gave me a much more tangible feel for the assets behind all the numbers.
The main caveat was that I'd have loved to get more involved in each deal and to feel like I was influencing it rather than just supporting it. That said, I recognise that isn't a realistic expectation for a four week internship, especially one split across two teams. A fair amount of the work was tedious at times, but it was always clear that it had to be done and that it genuinely mattered to the deals it fed into, and I'm very grateful to have had the chance to see how two different teams operate and the work that goes into what they do.
If I had to choose, I enjoyed Capital Markets slightly more, probably because the modelling and the deal process clicked with my interests, but I got real value from both teams. Overall it was a positive

Yes