Eric Siegel.
Eric Siegel, 33
Assistant vice president at Basis Investment Group
Eric Siegel’s rise in the real estate industry was anything but typical.
Born in Bogota, Colombia, Siegel was adopted and grew up on Long Island. After enrolling in the University of Rochester to study psychology, he had a realization that changed the trajectory of his life.
“I realized that I was the only person I knew paying for their own education,” Siegel said. “I started thinking about the fact that I was taking on loans, and started thinking about what my obligations were and what my earning potential would be. I became so interested in personal finance that I decided to move back to New York to network.”
After completing an undergraduate business degree at Baruch College in finance and investment during the Great Recession, he said that he struggled to find work that matched his ambition and interests.
“It was pretty tough at the time,” he recalled. “But, one day, I heard someone talking at a restaurant about their investment banking job. So I approached them and said, ‘Hey, look, I’m really interested in what you do. Could we talk further?’”
Thanks to that conversation, Siegel spent most of the next four years as an investment banking analyst and strategic adviser at Seidman and Co., a small valuation-oriented investment bank. His longtime interest in real estate eventually led him to Arbor Realty Trust, where he did structured finance for Class B and C multifamily properties.
“I got interested in real estate because, during college, I saw how the world could melt down, how a country like Greece could have problems, because a few people in Arizona and Florida didn’t pay their mortgages,” he said. “I was fascinated by that.”
After essentially restarting his career at Arbor Realty, Siegel was able to leverage his expertise for Basis Investment Group, where he now works on all types of asset classes.
“The diversified portfolio that we have at Basis [Investment] means that I can work on a more sophisticated variety of property types, from ground-up developments to hotels and self-storage,” he said. “I love that challenge.”
In June, Siegel worked on a $22 million structured equity investment for a 996-unit multifamily property in Indianapolis. The investment was part of a $124 million capitalization that involved backing a $97.25 million acquisition, along with a $19 million capital improvement plan.
“This has been the most interesting work of my career,” he said. “That deal was sophisticated in terms of structure, and pioneering for the firm, and it is doing very well.”
