Cordelia Meserow is an Associate Director in UBS's Realty Investor practice. She studied English as an undergrad, but with guidance from a family member in residential real estate, Cordelia concentrated on professional opportunities in real estate early on. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, she joined a top real estate investment bank in Chicago that focused on deal-making for real estate firms.

She says the best advice she could have given her younger self as a banking analyst would be to listen first and ask questions. "Having that sense of awareness is hard to cultivate, but being humble and saying you don't know something will get you a lot more points than being too confident, maybe overly so, and making a mistake."

We discuss different real estate investment considerations, from sheer asset types like a mall vs. an office building to owners' risk profiles when buying real estate. An owner can pay more for the newest building in the best location and be sure that the building will attract tenants shortly. On the other end of the spectrum are value-add buyers. "It's really the model of buy it, fix it, sell it." Cordelia talks about the trends in strategy she has seen across her career and the impact of Covid on the commercial real estate industry during the shift to hybrid work models. She has been interested to see that, for the first time, property owners in New York are focused on updating and renovating their spaces. "It's not enough to just own a building in New York anymore."

"It is important to be social at work. Those two things do not contradict each other." Cordelia emphasizes the importance of relationships in any business, and it is fascinating to hear how she has been connected to new clients and has heard about new investment opportunities by prioritizing her business relationships.