Students Compete in National Real Estate Challenge
Six graduate students from Cornell’s Program in Real Estate and the Johnson Graduate School of Management competed in the National Real Estate Challenge on November 3rd. The National Real Estate Challenge is hosted by the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. The annual case-based competition involved sixteen of the top graduate real estate and business programs in the United States. Each school enrolled a team of up to six students, of which at least four had to be in their second year of graduate school.
Cornell’s team, which included Andrew Chiao, Michael Cook, Matt Holzemer, Daniel Lentz, Reza Tabatabai, and Benjamin Weissbourd, prepared and presented multiple practice case to a committee who advised the team and provided experiential context for different types of developments and cases. Volunteers and faculty advisors included Brad Olson, Jon Minikes, David Funk, Jerome Haas, Bob Abrams, Barbara Mink, and Jack Corgel.
Faculty advisor Brad Olson commented, “This year’s team was the strongest we have entered and did an exceptional job! It was their misfortune to compete with UC Berkeley in the opening round - perhaps the most polished presentation in the entire competition. Plans to select and prepare next year’s team are already underway.”
The competition was organized with preliminary rounds of four schools each, with one team advancing from each preliminary section into a final of four. Each round was judged by a panel of respected real estate professionals from a variety of firms such as Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, The Lionstone Group, KeyBank Real Estate Capital, Crescent Real Estate Equities, and many others. The competition provided an outstanding opportunity for participants to gain exposure to and experience with the complex challenges faced by real estate professionals. Wharton, USC, UC Berkley, and Columbia finished first through fourth place respectively.
This year’s case, written by Goldman Sachs, involved a commercial office investment opportunity on behalf of a global real estate opportunity fund. Competitors were required to analyze and make consultative recommendations to judges on three separate issues pertaining to the investment. First, teams were required to make a recommendation regarding the potential purchase of new office buildings in the existing commercial campus. Second, teams had to analyze a potential long term lease offer for a portion of the campus. Finally, teams were required to address the potential bankruptcy of the site’s anchor tenant and present potential risk mitigation options to the fund managers.
“The competition was a great experience. It was an opportunity to work with great people, and it provided excellent access to prospective employers, including executives and managing directors from leading firms,” commented Matt Holzemer, second year Johnson Graduate School of Management student. “I have been contacted by potential employers in the week since the competition that saw my resume in the resume book.”
All participants’ resumes were submitted to McCombs prior to the competition and compiled into an aggregated resume book for the entire competition. Judges and prospective employers used this resume book and the competition as a whole to meet graduating students and potential new hires for their firms. The competition also featured a dinner and other events to provide prospective employers and students a chance to meet and interact.
“The real estate community is actually quite small and many of these companies are typically not large enough to host either on-campus recruiting or info sessions,” according to Andrew Chiao, second year Johnson Graduate School of Management student. “This was a great way to meet many companies all at once. On the very first night, dinner was arranged such that each table was filled with four to five of these senior individuals along with a similar number of students, which made it possible to have both meaningful and memorable conversations.”
Following the competition, executives from Goldman Sachs presented the actual case and walked participants through the details of the project. They discussed the difficulties facing the site at each stage and how the firm attempted to mitigate the risks and exit the project profitably.