đź“Ś 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.
đź’Ľ 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
Initial Interview with Hire5's Recruiter;
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.
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.
Second Interview with the Managing Partners (45 minutes) - a detailed discussion covering your experience, strategic thinking, and expectations.
Final Stage: test assignment. You’ll produce a fresh underwriting report on Elliot Plaza — a mismanaged 68 KSF strip mall in Seattle.