Bryce Churchill interned with Sotheby's International Realty in Makawao, HI, and contributed to property staging, listing marketing, and day-to-day brokerage operations.
How did you get your internship?
My dad's friendship with Ryan MacGlaughlin helped me secure this internship. Ryan leads a team at Island Sotheby's International Realty in Makawao, and my dad made arrangements to put us in touch, because he was aware that I was in search of a summer internship in either finance or real estate. It was not the case of submitting an application but the matter of a personal introduction followed by a short discussion about my summer goals. As a result, I ended up being entrusted with more responsibilities than one would expect from a regular intern from the very start of my internship.
Why did you choose this internship?
I chose Sotheby's because it allowed me to mix my interest in finance with my interest in real estate in a location that I am familiar with and on Maui. Also, Ryan MacGlaughlin's team worked on several bigger projects such as a new development called Lipoa with Pacific Rim Land, so I knew that I was not going to spend my summer just shadowing open houses. In essence, I was looking for an internship that offered me experience on both sides of the real estate business, client facing and analyzing aspects such as pricing, competition, and market trends.
What kind of work did you do throughout your internship?
I logged 231 hours at my internship site, so I was able to do a lot of things. At the start of my internship, I went to open houses to see if the properties fit the needs of the clients and I learned the online software that the agents use for price predictions or comparables. As the summer passed, my tasks got more demanding: writing property descriptions for the MLS listings, preparing market analysis, coordinating staging and photographing of a vacant property, and organizing and hosting open houses. I took part in the Lipoa project with the president of Pacific Rim Land because Ryan's team had to sell around 4 houses a week for the new multifamily development, and I was in charge of providing the property details and coordinating their activities. Finally, at the end of my internship, I prepared a newsletter for the clients with a local market research, organized the photo archive, and participated in the negotiation call between two agents.
What new knowledge and skills did you develop?
I became quite comfortable with the analytical aspects of real estate: researching comparables, applying pricing software, and creating competitive market analyses for agents. I also picked up unexpected communication skills, such as answering buyer queries during open houses and describing features of properties observed at showings. Sitting in on negotiations demonstrated that real estate is about much more than just numbers; it is largely about reading people correctly. Organizing the logistics of an open house and putting together the client newsletter were other opportunities that gave me practical skills in marketing and project coordination.
What was the most challenging part of your internship? What did you learn from it?
One of the hardest challenges I faced was being thrown into situations with the clients, like taking the main clients to their property viewings or hosting an open house, without feeling prepared to answer everything they might ask. It felt scary at the beginning, especially in early summer when I was learning to use matching prices and comparing prices by myself. However, it encouraged me to learn it quickly and know that I could handle anything in front of clients, thus becoming more confident in myself. By the end of the summer, these same tasks didn't seem nearly as complicated anymore.
What do you think were your most significant contributions?
The most significant contribution I made was my involvement in the Lipoa project, where I helped coordinate property details concerning a development where Ryan's team was tasked with selling four homes weekly. With those goals in mind, I helped create the property descriptions and plotted comps that were instrumental in the pricing and marketing of the properties. Additionally, managing the logistics of the open house plus creating the client newsletter gave me the feeling of being directly responsible for output items that were not merely observations, but which were actually utilized by the agency.
How has it influenced your future plans?
This internship made me realize I would prefer to establish a career that combines both finance and real estate, instead of choosing one area of my career. Experiencing the Lipoa project, and listening to an actual negotiation showed me how much capital planning and deal structuring influence large scale real estate. The internship has also motivated me to start preparing for getting my real estate license as I have been taking the course closer to the end of the summer. As a result of the internship I changed my mindset from seeking a real estate internship in a general sense to being more interested in roles making deals or doing capital markets.