National Real Estate Challenge Results
On November 17-18, a team of six students from the Cornell Program in Real Estate (PRE) and the Johnson Graduate School of Management (JGSM) competed for top honors and cash awards at the National Real Estate Challenge held in Austin, Texas. Hosted by University of Texas McCombs School of Business, the case-based competition featured twenty teams representing leading business and real estate schools from around the country. This year, the Wharton School, UC-Berkeley, Vanderbilt University, and the University of Chicago finished in first, second, third and fourth places, respectively.
Program in Real Estate Senior Lecturer Pike Oliver, a faculty advisor, commented, “This year’s team presented an extremely strong case, and had an excellent presentation. It was the team’s misfortune to compete with Wharton, the eventual winner, in the opening round. Plans to draw from this team’s positive experience and prepare for the 2011 National Real Estate Challenge are already underway.”
Cornell team members included Tyler Williams (JGSM/ PRE 2011), Ian McKay (PRE 2011), Trista Miller (JGSM 2011), Steve Woodard (PRE 2011), Justin Brown (JGSM 2011) and Clifton Coffey (JGSM/ PRE 2011). Connor MacLennan (PRE 2012) and Ben Gottlieb (JGSM 2012) served as understudies who trained with this year’s team and will assume leadership roles on next year’s team. Volunteers and faculty advisors helping the team include Oliver, Brad Olson, Jon Minikes, and Angela Noble-Grange.
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. Steve Woodard, PRE 2012, commented “The National Real Estate Challenge was a unique and valuable experience. I especially enjoyed interacting with other top teams from around the country. This year’s case involved a strategic workout on two distressed assets; the team was well prepared and collaborated to create a unique solution that benefited both parties. I am grateful for Cornell faculty and classmate support during our initial preparation.”
Each team presented a 20-minute case presentation to a panel of real estate professionals. Following the presentation a group of judges asked the groups probing questions to test their knowledge and preparation. The top four teams were then chosen and asked to present once more to all the judges and students to determine final placement. This year’s case was prepared by Goldman Sachs & Co. and was judged by professionals from sponsoring companies such as lead sponsors Goldman Sachs & Co., The Lionstone Group, and Rothschild Realty Managers LLC, and contributing sponsors including Bentall Kennedy, Real Estate Capital Partners, JMI Realty and many others
.
This year’s case study required student teams to examine two properties with upcoming loan maturities owned by a global real estate opportunity fund. One of the assets, a recently completed but vacant office building, sat in a very strong market which was recently selected as the next headquarters for a large corporation, indicating to the fund that the space should fill quickly. The other asset was a well-located parcel of land entitled for office development in a volatile market that will likely not experience development demand for another five years. The teams were presented with a strategy a fund employee had arranged to restructure the loans and were asked to analyze the strategy and make amendments and suggestions as the teams felt necessary. As always, this case was based on actual investments by Goldman Sachs & Co. A retrospective of the actual events in the case was presented by a representative of Goldman Sachs & Co. following the completion of the case competition.
Next semester, students from the Program in Real Estate and the Johnson Graduate School of Management will vie for spots on next year’s case competition team. The tryouts will mirror the competition as the students are provided the case just days before being asked to present and will have to present a 10 minute power point presentation to a group of judges followed by a 5 minute period where the judges will ask questions of the candidates. The candidates will be judged on their presentation, their analysis of the case and their understanding of the key issues presented in the case.