AI-Driven Real Estate Investment Associate

In order to be considered, please send a video to our hiring team:

About Catalyst

Catalyst is an entrepreneurial, forward-thinking commercial real estate development, investment and technology firm based in Charlotte, NC. We develop and acquire unique, thoughtfully conceived, and highly profitable private equity and institutionally sized residential projects across all multifamily and residential asset classes. Our work serves investors, development partners, and the communities in which we build. The firm is fully integrated, AI-first, technologically progressive, and supported by over 15 decades of combined experience in commercial and residential real estate development, ownership, investment, and asset management.

To date, Catalyst has developed and acquired over 3,300 residential units , with more than $1 billion in active development and investment activity across 13 projects currently under construction or in pre-development.

The Opportunity

Catalyst is seeking an AI-Driven Real Estate Investment Associate to join our growing acquisitions, development, and technology platform. This is not a traditional analyst role. We are looking for someone who combines institutional-grade financial rigor with a modern, technology-first approach to “doing more with less”. You will be expected to leverage AI tools, agents, automations, and data platforms intentionally as a standard part of your workflow, not as a supplement to it. Your responsibilities will span new opportunity evaluation, complex capitalization structuring, asset management support, and direct engagement with capital partners. The right candidate moves fast, takes full ownership of their deliverables, and is actively building toward a future where technology and real estate expertise are inseparable.

Who You Are

• Builder by default: When a tool doesn't exist, you look to build it. When a process is inefficient, you look to automate it.
• Action-oriented: High energy, you move with a sense of urgency, make sound decisions with available information, and deliver results without waiting for perfect conditions. You ask for help regularly and ask how you can help others.
• Dependable: Your commitments are reliable. Deadlines are treated as firm obligations, and your colleagues know they can count on you.
• Technologically fluent: You actively leverage excel, AI tools, automation, and software to enhance your work. Applying these tools to real financial workflows is a natural part of how you operate, not an afterthought.
• Entrepreneurial: You approach each opportunity with creative problem-solving and a sense of personal ownership over outcomes.
• A strong communicator: You keep partners and leadership informed, identify issues proactively, and present complex information clearly to both internal teams and external capital partners.
• Growth-oriented: You are committed to continuous improvement, actively seek feedback, and are building toward expanded responsibility and deal-level leadership.

ResponsibilitiesNew Opportunity Evaluation and Deal Pursuit

• Bring a partnership mindset to all pursuit activity, working collaboratively across internal teams, development partners, and capital relationships to advance the firm's goals, including but not limited to demoing and finding new technologies and tools to streamline workflows.
• Contribute to the firm's pursuit strategy by evaluating and prioritizing new development and acquisition opportunities, leveraging AI-powered research and screening tools to move faster and with greater precision than traditional workflows allow.
• Manage a high-volume acquisitions pipeline with discipline, ensuring opportunities are tracked, prioritized, and advanced without delays, coordinating onshore and offshore team members to maintain momentum across all active pursuits.
• Conduct detailed property-level analyses across Conventional Multifamily, Build-to-Rent (BTR), and Active Adult (55+) asset classes, utilizing AI tools to accelerate comp analysis, market research, and financial pre-screening.
• Prepare investment committee memoranda and property-level business plans, including detailed project timelines, drawing on team support and technology to produce institutional-quality materials efficiently.
• Support due diligence coordination, underwriting, and pre-construction facilitation efforts, managing internal and external team members to keep workstreams on schedule.

Financial Modeling and Capital Structuring

• Must be AI-first and lean into automations to help underwrite, source, and manage deals.
• Develop development pro formas, acquisition models, and recapitalization analyses from inception utilizing AI, without reliance on pre-built templates.
• Model a range of capital structures including senior debt, mezzanine debt, preferred equity, equity waterfalls, and common equity.
• Analyze rent comparables, project unit mix and ancillary income, and stress-test return scenarios across multiple market conditions.
• Utilize AI productivity tools to accelerate model development in all areas, automate data workflows, and improve analytical output. Proficiency with these tools is expected.
• Construct and evaluate hold/sell models at the request of investors or internal principals.
• Manage third-party tax consulting relationships to ensure accuracy in property tax projections.
• Coordinate with third-party property managers to obtain financial projections for new developments and acquisitions.

Asset Management and Portfolio Oversight

• Maintain and update performance projections at key project milestones, tracking investor IRR and cash flow multiples relative to underwriting.
• Monitor portfolio compliance with debt and equity provider requirements and covenants.
• Review and analyze operating statements, budget variances, loan administration activity, and appraisal reports.
• Contribute to the formulation of annual business plans, including revenue, expense, and NOI targets as well as capital and operating budgets.
• Track capital improvement projects to ensure timely completion within established budgets.
• Prepare and present updates to investment principals and the investment committee.
• Develop and distribute portfolio reports for investment principals and equity partners.

Investor Relations and Capital Markets

• Oversee the preparation of offering memoranda for distribution to debt providers, institutional equity partners, family offices, registered investment advisors, and high net worth investors.
• Support investor reporting coordination and fundraising material preparation.
• Communicate directly and professionally with capital providers across all stages of a transaction.

Market Intelligence

• Conduct supply and demand analysis along with rent and sales comparable research, including estimated replacement cost benchmarks.
• Gather, compile, and analyze market, economic, and capital market trends affecting the multifamily portfolio.
• Synthesize research findings into financial models and presentations for internal and external audiences.
• Maintain ongoing awareness of submarket dynamics, capital market shifts, and competitive positioning across target markets.

Qualifications

• Recent colleage graduates are ok.
• AI-first mindset, history and aptitude. Passion for growth, change and new and better ways to solve old problems.
• 0 to 4 years of experience in real estate finance, investment banking, private equity, or a multifamily development, ownership, or brokerage environment.
• Proficiency in Excel-based financial modeling, including equity waterfall structures, development pro formas, and debt and equity analysis built from first principles - and in particular an interest and ability to leverage AI tools to enhance internal systems and processes around financial analysis.
• Direct experience with multifamily underwriting is preferred (acquisitions/development)
• Working knowledge of CoStar and comparable market research platforms.
• Demonstrated, applied use of AI productivity tools in a professional analytical context.
• Strong written, verbal and face-to-face communication skills, including the ability to present to and engage with capital providers.
• High attention to detail and the ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Real Estate, Economics, or a related discipline preferred.

In order to be considered, please send a video to our hiring team: