Real Estate Curriculum & Course Descriptions

Corporate Finance is a prerequisite.

Capital Markets & Investments is a co-requisite.

Real estate accounts for 2/3 of the real assets around the world. You simply cannot ignore it in as an investor or in any business, whether the business is called real estate or not! This course provides students with a comprehensive understanding of real estate valuation, cycles, markets, investments, and decision-making, using modern finance and economics tools. The bulk of the course covers income-producing (commercial) property, although we will discuss residential housing as well. This course is not a hodgepodge of vaguely connected methodologies and rules of thumb about real estate. Rather, it uses a unified finance-based framework to answer real estate investment decision-making problems encountered in the real world. Doing so requires a good understanding of the institutional features that differentiate real estate from other asset classes and markets as well as modern finance and economics tools.

Real Estate Finance is essential for all students who wish to take further coursework in real estate. 3 credits. The division will offer students the option to take an exemption exam. 3 credits.

Cities are dynamic centers of human achievement where new ideas are generated, industries flourish, and cultures intertwine. Highly skilled workers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and scientists have long been drawn to these dense urban environments due to social and professional networks, industry clustering and the myriad of cultural and public resources cities offer.  However, the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted the trend towards increasing urbanization as workers emptied urban downtowns and worked remotely. These disruptions have important consequences for city economies and urban and suburban real estate valuations.

Cities are now forced to transform once again and re-imagine their future in a world of hybrid work, AI, and climate change.  This course will explore how urban centers are adapting to these seismic challenges and how leaders must reconcile future growth with social and environmental stewardship. This course will explore the process of disruption and transformation using cities as the unit of analysis. It will combine conceptual analysis with real-world strategies pursued by cities such as New York City to effectuate urban regeneration. This includes critical infrastructure underpinning urban mobility, clean energy, and real estate investments in housing, office, industrial and entertainment assets, often through public-private partnerships. This course is meant for MBA students seeking a bigger-picture perspective on the intersection of business and government in the realm of real estate, innovation and infrastructure. 1.5 credits.

The focus of this advanced real estate course is to understand what it means to be in a “distressed” situation or environment and to learn to analyze, underwrite and structure investment opportunities in this type of environment. Students will learn to: (i) value and model assets that require significant measures to stabilize; (ii) understand complex balance sheet structures; and (iii) develop strategies to successfully negotiate, structure and close complex distressed investments. Particular emphasis throughout the course will be placed on understanding risk and on presenting conclusions concisely and clearly.

This class will help provide knowledge in key areas to help build expertise that can be used to purchase distressed real estate assets. For example, it is important to understand debt structures, as many assets are acquired when a property is unable to meet its borrowing obligations and a mezzanine lender or CMBS special servicer is in a position to determine the future of an asset. Similarly, when assets are suffering from key problems, it is even more critical to be able to understand and manage risk and conduct appropriate due diligence. 1.5 credits.

The goal of this course is to make you knowledgeable and conversant about the principles of real estate, with many changes as the world has adjusted to the new circumstances of COVID-19. As both a physical asset and an investment asset with a defined location in space, real estate is strikingly different from other asset classes. Real estate forms part of the alternative investment asset class and institutional investors invest a substantial part of their portfolio in real estate. We will look at the investors in real estate and the investment management firms and how they are investing internationally. We will give an overview of investing in all major commercial property types: office, logistics, retail, hotels, and residential, niche sectors like senior housing and student housing, and the purchase of a home and consider how these are changing to a quickly evolving world. The goal is to give an overview of the international real estate market and provide you with the tool set to identify investment opportunities globally, certainly for investing but also to find a place to live and figure out how to work.

Please note any student that has already taken B7331 Real Estate Finance should NOT take this block week course as there will be overlap in content. 3 credits.

Real estate accounts for one third of the capital assets around the world. You simply cannot ignore it in as an investor or in any business, whether the business is called real estate or not. The last few years have seen a rapid increase in the use of Big Data in the real estate industry. Much more data have become available that allow companies to radically improve their decision making and create value in ways that are rapidly transforming the real estate industry.

This course will use tools from business analytics and new, large real estate datasets to help shed light on important questions in residential and commercial real estate. The course will foster both conceptual understanding and hands-on skill acquisition through coding in Python. This course is meant both for students with strong programming background who want to learn more about real estate and for students of real estate who want to beef up their data analytics skills. 3 credits. 

This half session “B” course is focused primarily on the commercial real estate debt markets and is complemented by the half session “A” course, Real Estate Equity Markets which precedes it.  Students may wish to take both half courses sequentially for a complete understanding of the Real Estate Capital Markets or individually.   

The purpose of this course is to provide the student with a comprehensive understanding of the commercial real estate debt markets from the perspective of real estate debt capital providers, real estate debt capital users (the borrower/property owner) as well as real estate debt investors. The approach will be to make sure students first understand the debt products and then to apply that understanding to “reality”.  Students will learn how to underwrite, size, and analyze a variety of different types of commercial real estate debt including balance sheet first mortgage loans, first mortgage loans for securitization and CMBS, and subordinate debt structures including mezzanine loans, B- notes and preferred equity.  The course will also cover transitional lending (construction lending and bridge financing). To tie everything together from the perspective of a real debt capital user we will then have a senior debt user (guest speaker) discuss these various instruments and their application from the perspective of a borrower.  1.5 credits.

REITs have existed as a legal form for over 55 years, but the modern REIT era can be traced to the early 1990’s. Since that time, the sector has grown from approximately $5.0 billion in assets to over $1.0 trillion. More importantly, the migration of assets and talent into the public markets has helped make REITs one of the primary drivers of value creation in the real estate industry as well as a repository of operating expertise. By some estimates REITs today comprise 15.0% - 20.0% of the investible commercial real estate market; given significant competitive advantages, that share is growing. The net result has been irrevocable structural change and increased stability across the real estate industry. The REIT sector has evolved into a very viable and credible investment class; the group now comprises a significant weighting in the major stock indices with its own industry classification. 

Real Estate Equity Securities Analysis will serve as a substantive introduction to the companies that comprise the REIT and real estate securities sectors, conceptually and as an investment.  The course will provide the requisite analytical tools to value real estate stocks; we will utilize conventional securities analysis tools, on an applied basis. It will also look holistically at the REITs as operating entities, specifically how these companies work and what they are worth. We will incorporate qualitative, strategic and technical considerations into the quantitative valuation analyses – to reach more rigorous and successful investment conclusions. . 1.5 credits.

This class is for students who are interested in pursuing a career in any aspect of the commercial real estate industry: investment, development, lending, construction, capital-raising or advisory. The course is designed to address a broad range of considerations that arise as a real estate transaction moves from term sheet to legal documentation to closing and beyond with twin goals of capturing value and allocating risk across the various components of real estate transactions.

As a means of integrating theory and practice, the course links business strategy and legal structure. It draws heavily on cases and other materials specially designed for this course. Leading attorneys and market participants bring their expertise and insights to class to discuss the legal risks, rights, and remedies underlying contract transactions, financial structures for debt and equity, distress and restructuring strategies, and M&A transactions in today’s real estate markets. 3 credits.

The focus of this course is the $27 trillion U.S. housing market, the largest real estate market in the world. The topic is of ongoing interest but particularly relevant today as debate continues as to how to privatize the government sponsored enterprise (GSEs), and how to improve housing affordability which has resulted in soaring rents, record homelessness, and made the American dream harder than ever to achieve. Where possible we will also include reference to non-U.S. housing markets such as comparing their mortgage finance systems with that of the U.S.

The course’s objective is to teach the student how to develop, value, finance, and invest in residential real estate and residential real estate debt securities and derivatives as well as to understand how the US residential financing system works. Given its’ broad and deep sweep, students will learn about a wide range of topics ranging from the importance of fits and finishes in selling homes in a new subdivision, to how to entitle land, to how blockchain and AI is being used to disrupt the mortgage origination process, to how to create an Agency residential CMO companion bond. A range of housing types will be covered including single family subdivisions, market rate urban condominiums, low and moderate income housing, workforce and student housing, manufactured housing, and senior residential living communities, and rental apartments. At the end of the course, we will also focus on racism and real estate and explore not for profit affordable housing solutions. 3 credits.