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While grounded in finance and economics, the topic of real estate is a vast and fascinating subject area with many specialized terms, concepts and skills unique to the industry. This course introduces students to this essential, foundational knowledge so that they are better prepared for the more advanced real estate courses which follow as well as prepare them early in the program to immediately engage with real estate professionals. Using the tools, technology and terminology in this course, students will have an excellent foundation to pursue further studies in real estate and will be better equipped to recognize and act upon valuable investment opportunities as they arise in their personal and professional life.

Harnessing technology is becoming increasing important in the real estate industry, particularly in building sophisticated valuation models for highly structured projects. In this half-semester course, you will enhance your excel skills and learn industry best practices in creating valuation proformas in Excel. Specific functions you’ll utilize will include multi-variable data tables, goal seek analysis, and scenario drop-down tables. In the second module you will thoroughly learn ARGUS, a complex, specialized computer software tool used heavily by real estate professionals. By the end of this module, you will be well-prepared to become ARGUS certified if you so choose (a nice enhancement to your resume). You will utilize the Excel and ARGUS skills in the Real Estate Case course and NAIOP Challenge course in the spring semester. This modeling course will also introduce you to CoStar, a comprehensive database tool related to commercial real estate leasing. CoStar data is also utilized in the program’s Real Estate Economics course.

Being a successful real estate professional in today’s complex world requires a both a key understanding of data and the ability to carefully apply statistical reasoning in a real estate context. These high-level numeracy skills will help distinguish you from other real estate professionals. Topics included in this course include generating and interpreting descriptive statistics and understanding key notions of probability, probability distributions, sampling theory and sampling distributions. Drawing conclusions from this information, referred to as statistical inference (both estimation and hypothesis testing) applied in a real estate context, is a primary focus of this class. Upon completion, you will have a valuable analytical tool kit you can bring to your job including many real estate applications of regression analysis, such as hedonic modeling and constructing property valuation indexes.

Why do technology firms cluster in Silicon Valley? Why do most Americans live in suburbs? Was the recent boom-bust cycle in housing prices predictable? These are but a sampling of some of the economic questions tackled in this course. We will study the location decisions made by households and firms, and how these decisions shape the development of cities and impact real estate prices. This course provides a foundation for applying economic principles and frameworks to better understand markets and how supply and demand forces determine real estate prices. Later in the course, we will focus on commercial real estate markets and will analyze them using CoStar, a common real estate database tool used in industry.

This course focuses on the financing and financial analysis of both residential and commercial real estate. Throughout the course, we go through several hands-on numerical examples, Excel spreadsheets, and case studies (both inside and outside of class) to put the knowledge we gain into practice. This course not only prepares you for positions in the real estate investment industry, but also provides tools and real-estate specific knowledge that will help in any future (personal or professional) real estate application, including working with mortgage origination or syndication and other mortgage market applications.

Successful real estate professionals lean heavily on the specialized nature of real estate law. There are several key principles and terms unique to this legal environment. This course covers these topics including developing, acquiring, transferring and leasing real property. The course also covers real estate contracts, due diligence and contingencies, land use and development agreements, choosing appropriate limited liability entities for running a real estate business and for owning investment properties, real estate covenants, conditions and restrictions, loan transactions, negotiating real estate contracts, commercial leases and real estate taxation. Students will learn from assigned readings and will participate in discussion of actual real estate legal cases.

This is a highly participatory class where students analyze real estate investment opportunities from both the buy-and sell-side of the transaction. The wide variety of real-world transactions covered in this course expose students to nearly all product types (apartments, condominiums, office, retail, industrial, and hotel). We evaluate real estate investments in existing properties, substantial rehabilitations, and new construction. Students work in groups and learn to prepare high-quality analyses suitable for presentation to an investment committee. The course requires students to analyze cases (often with conflicting or incomplete information), think through the implications of a given decision and then defend their final recommendations.