Last year, the real estate program introduced a new undergraduate capstone class: Real Estate Investment Analysis. The class is designed to teach students how to comprehensively underwrite commercial real estate for a variety of property types. Bill Camp, senior lecturer and the professor teaching the class shared, “The goal is to inform students about how owners look at adding value to a property once it is owned.”
The undergraduate real estate curriculum has recently been reworked, adding required classes in Excel and ARGUS modeling, and streamlining course material to follow more sequentially. These changes prompted the creation of Real Estate Investment Analysis as a new capstone course. The course builds upon the concepts taught in Real Estate Finance, Real Estate Valuations, and applies many of the topics covered in the entire real estate curriculum.
The course is designed to give students exposure to real-life examples. Woven throughout the course are case studies and current events presentations where students can analyze real investments and understand the effects of the current economic world. Students are challenged to look at tension points in deals and understand why something did not go as planned and what should have been done instead.
The course also features guest lecturers to give students different underwriting perspectives, from property management, asset management and portfolio management, to development and acquisitions specialists. Guest lecturers also provide multiple perspectives on asset classes and investment markets.
The case assignments and final presentations are assigned as group projects to prepare students for the professional world. Overall, the class is designed to teach students everything they need to begin underwriting commercial real estate and the soft skills required to succeed in the professional real estate world. This capstone course builds upon students’ previous courses within the real estate program, challenging them to think critically about real estate investment.
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