Underwriting Associate at Columbia Creek - a U.S.-based privately held real estate investment f[...]

Hire5; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading real estate investment firm seeks an Underwriting Associate to quickly evaluate property leads and turn them into investable cases. This role requires analytical skills, financial modeling expertise, and 1-3 years of real estate underwriting experience. You will directly influence multimillion-dollar investment decisions while working within a fast-paced and entrepreneurial environment.

Benefits

Direct Impact on investment decisions

Speed & Autonomy in work

Flexible working hours

Qualifications

• 1-3 years of hands-on underwriting experience for the U.S. market.
• Direct exposure to U.S. retail real estate, especially strip malls.
• Comfortable interpreting zoning codes and discussing site layout.

Responsibilities

• Underwrite property leads daily across U.S. markets.
• Build and maintain financial models like cash-flow and sensitivity analyses.
• Draft concise IC memos and lender packages defending the business plan.

Skills

Analytical Skills

Financial Modeling

Excel

Market Analysis

Communication

Initiative

Education

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Real Estate, Economics, Engineering

Job description

Job Title: Underwriting Associate

Company: Columbia Creek

Location: Remote (U.S. market knowledge required)

Employment Type: Full-Time

About Columbia Creek

Columbia Creek is a privately held real estate investment firm focused on acquiring and repositioning distressed or mismanaged retail assets throughout the United States. Our specialty is single-floor strip malls and free-standing retail centers — from $3M local properties to $40M redevelopment projects. We operate as a lean, fast-moving team executing high-leverage strategies to unlock value through repositioning and hands-on asset management.

About the Role
We’re hiring an Underwriting Associate to act as the “first responder” on new property leads. Your job is to quickly (within 1 h) evaluate raw retail opportunities and turn them into investable business cases. You'll assess the potential upside, pressure-test assumptions, and help us make buy decisions — fast.

This is napkin underwriting with real impact: based on your analysis, we decide whether to make an offer. You’ll also support deeper second-round reviews and follow-up diligence for deals we pursue.

Responsibilities

• Underwrite property leads daily across U.S. markets, with a focus on Washington

• Quickly turn around high-level investment analyses: check zoning, pull lease comps, assess value-add potential

• Build and maintain financial models (cash-flow, sensitivity, DCR, IRR, equity multiple, waterfall)

• Call brokers, qualify leads, and clarify assumptions

• Conduct market and HBU analysis: rent/sales comps, zoning/FAR, demographic trends, parking requirements

• Draft concise IC memos and lender packages that clearly defend the business plan and risk profile

• Support deeper diligence for deals that move to the next phase

Requirements

• 1–3 years of hands-on underwriting experience (real estate or investment banking) for the U.S. market

• Direct exposure to U.S. retail real estate, especially strip malls or value-add repositioning

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Real Estate, Economics, Engineering, or a related field

• Proficient in Excel and Google Sheets (including nested formulas, Power Query or VBA a plus)

• Demonstrated ability to model ground-up or heavy-value-add projects (IRR, equity multiple, waterfall).

• Comfortable interpreting zoning codes, reading architectural drawings, and discussing site layout plans

• Clear written and verbal communication; able to distill a 50-tab model into a five-slide pitch.

• Sharp, fast, and organized — you don’t wait for instruction, you take initiative
  
  

Working Hours

The Managing Partners are based in Seattle (PST), and we need someone who can reliably overlap with our core working hours. Required availability: 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM PST (Monday to Friday). The remaining 2 hours are flexible. We value responsiveness during working sessions and give you autonomy for deep focus the rest of the time.

What We Offer

• Full-time job (8 working hours per day, Monday-Friday). Please note that we will not consider candidates planning to combine several jobs.

• Direct Impact – Your underwriting will directly influence multimillion-dollar investment decisions. You’ll be a key part of a lean, entrepreneurial team—not a cog in a corporate machine.

• Speed & Autonomy – We move fast and value independent thinking.

• Salary will be discussed during the interview. Paid in USD.

• Quick selection process.

Selection Process

1. Initial Interview with Hire5's Recruiter;

2. Submit a Past Underwriting Sample - you’ll be asked to share a previous underwriting report you personally prepared for a value-add retail acquisition in the U.S.

3. First Interview with the Managing Partners (30 minutes) - a focused conversation to assess alignment and dive deeper into your approach to underwriting and retail assets.

4. Second Interview with the Managing Partners (45 minutes) - a detailed discussion covering your experience, strategic thinking, and expectations.

5. Final Stage: test assignment. You’ll produce a fresh underwriting report on Elliot Plaza — a mismanaged 68 KSF strip mall in Seattle.