New Real Estate Courses Combine Career Focus with Industry Expertise
In every industry, it’s considered desirable to “get in on the ground floor”: to get started on a venture ahead of others, or to be attuned to something happening before others are.
For undergraduate students in LeBow’s real estate management and development program, new course offerings will give them a head start on their careers and eventually propel them to much higher floors — in both a literal and metaphorical sense.
Thirty-nine undergraduate students are currently enrolled in Valuation and Forecasting in Real Estate (REMD T-480), a newly offered course and one of several receiving direct support from the Wilbur C. Henderson Real Estate Institute (HREI) Advisory Board.
The Advisory Board generously funded access to real-estate industry software programs Green Street and Argus for all students in REMD T-480. Widely used throughout the industry for researching markets, calculating cash flows and assessing property values, these programs will boost students’ technical and analytical skills in preparation for their future careers and supplement experience gained through co-op employment.
Robin Flagler, former president of AION Management and chair of the HREI advisory board, explains that the board’s goal of augmenting existing courses includes leveraging their professional connections to arrange site visits, guest lectures and other additions to the REMD program that go beyond classroom-based learning.
“We’re refining the curriculum to make it applicable to the environment we’re in today and giving them exposure to multiple sectors of the business – office, residential, commercial, single-family. This will also allow them to make more educated decisions as to where their area of focus will be once they graduate,” she says.
The Board’s generous support will extend to a total of six new or newly-revised courses in the REMD program, including continued access to the tools real-estate professionals rely on in their careers.
Kevin C. Gillen, PhD, senior research fellow with Drexel’s Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation and adjunct professor for REMD T-480, describes these programs as “defining the industry standard for evaluating real estate projects and deals.”
“Argus is a spreadsheet-style software for analyzing cash flows and doing traditional financial analytics, whereas GreenStreet is more for market analysis, with connections to a large database of comparables and actual market-level microeconomic and macroeconomic data,” he says.
As students utilize both programs for analyzing industry case studies, they’re also participating in off-campus visits to recently developed properties or ones slated for upcoming development. These properties are mainly outside of Center City, where many young professionals move in search of lower rents and prices as they enter into post-college life.
“For the developers, these students are not just prospective employees but prospective tenants,” Gillen says. “Most of the students are from the Philadelphia area and are interested in real estate careers that can help revitalize the city’s neighborhoods. So the focus of their first project as an analyst won’t be a luxury high-rise in Center City; it will be rehabbed rowhomes in Port Richmond.”
Industry experts will provide guest lectures throughout the term to supplement Gillen’s instruction. Highlights from the quarter include visitors from national real-estate firm Cushman Wakefield, local developer The Riverwards Group and the Appraisal Institute, the primary national organization for real-estate appraisers.
Receiving these insights from real-estate industry professionals, including members of the HREI advisory board, is another key component of the ongoing REMD curriculum revision.
“We all feel a sense of wanting to give back by supporting the students and the institution,” says Flagler. “I felt it was very important to expose them to industry leaders, because you get such a great perspective on the various facets of the industry from people who have years of applicable experience.”
After a site visit to Somerset Properties, the students switch modes and break up into teams to act as consultants, using the course’s software to analyze the project and advise developer The Riverwards Group on pricing, financing, marketing and other financial and economic factors.
Students’ presentations to Riverwards’ management, accompanied by a professional-grade report complete with an executive summary and key findings, will serve as a capstone for the course — “real lessons with real preparation for the real world,” as Gillen puts it, where they’ll soon be putting together pitches and making deals.
