Cornell Competes in the 7th Annual National Real Estate Challenge
On Thursday, November 13, twenty graduate student teams from leading schools competed for top honors and cash awards at the National Real Estate Challenge held in Austin, Texas. Hosted by University of Texas’s McCombs School of Business, the case-based competition featured leading business and real estate schools from around the country. This year, University of Texas, Wharton, Vanderbilt and Yale finished in first, second, third and fourth places, respectively.
Each school was allowed only one team of four to six graduate students and is required to provide a 20-minute case presentation to a panel of real estate professionals. The winning team received $6,000, while the second, third, and fourth place teams received $3,000, $2,000 and $1,000, respectively. This year’s case was prepared by Goldman Sachs & Co. and was judged by professionals from sponsoring companies such as lead sponsors such as Goldman Sachs & Co., Kennedy Associates, Realty Capital, Hawkeye Partners, ING Clarion, The Lionstone Group, and Weingarten Realty Investors.
Program in Real Estate Senior Lecturer Brad Olson, lead faculty adviser to the team, described the competition as “a unique learning opportunity for students. Their semester-long preparation adds a depth of understanding of real-world real estate fiancé and deal structuring issues, which is then followed by an intensely competitive case study competition experience in a challenging environment. With the expansion of the competition to twenty teams, this year’s Challenge was the largest event and most significant yet. We were very proud of the team’s effort!” The student team was also advised by Cornell Program in Real Estate Advisory Board members Ken Campia and Jon Minikes.
The Cornell team is comprised of students from both the Johnson Graduate School of Management and the Program in Real Estate. Participants included Matt Monson (JGSM/ PRE ’09), Tim Yaeger (PRE’09), Innes Lam (JGSM ’09), Jonathan Herbert (PRE ’09) Brent Simon (JGSM ’09). Stephen Lee (PRE ’10) and Chris Haine (PRE ’10) served as understudies who trained with this year’s team and will assume leadership roles on next year’s team.
“The Real Estate Challenge affords students a unique opportunity to combine knowledge gleaned from Cornell’s real estate curriculum with real-world transactions, said team member Jonathan Herbert. “Presenting a Goldman case is a daunting task, because each deal is complex and has a variety of risks which must be considered. The preparation, while intense, was invaluable because of the exposure to a collaborative learning environment and the access to faculty and advisor coaching.”
This year’s case study required student teams to examine a mixed use high rise development opportunity on behalf of a global real estate opportunity fund. A number of issues had to be addressed, including acquisition, finance, development and disposition strategies. As always, the cases used for the competition are based on actual investments. A retrospective of the actual events in the case were presented by a representatives of Goldman Sachs & Co.’s following the completion of the case competition.
The case competition presents students with an opportunity for students to deal with real estate issues, to work together in a group setting, and to test their skills in a concentrated time period. “What I enjoyed most about working on the Real Estate Challenge competition is working with my fellow team members to solve the critical issues value about preparing for the competition,” said Tim Yaeger.
Next semester, students from both the Program in Real Estate and the Johnson Graduate School of Management will vie for spots on next year’s case competition team.
Author: Chris Haine , Cornell Program in Real Estate Student