Real Estate Finance

A good real estate professional needs to wear several hats. For example, the professional needs to know how to talk to Architects and General Contractors. The professional also needs to know the zoning and permitting processes. Lastly and perhaps most importantly, the professional needs to know about the finance aspect of the project. Unfortunately, talking to Architects is quite different than talking to General Contractors. They both use different jargon and they both have different “cultures”. Similarly, city planners are different than real estate financiers. As a result a working knowledge of all aspects of real estate development is pivotal.

To get a better understanding of various aspects of real estate, OCOB students participate is various real-estate “competitions”. Four examples of competitions are:

1. Bank of America Real Estate Competition: An example of a report from project is here and an accompanying video is here.
2. NAHB Competition: This competition is primarily through the construction management department.
3. Villanova real estate competition: The details about the competition are here. If you intend to pursue, make sure that the dates are amenable to your schedule. An example of a winning project can be viewed here.
4. ARGUS competition: The details about the competition can be found here.

These four competitions require different time commitments and take place at various times of the year. Also, note that participation in these four competitions is neither guaranteed nor exclusive. For instance, USC organizes a competition and Cal Poly has never participated. Similarly, Urban Land Institute organizes several competitions and Cal Poly has never participated. Therefore, as mentioned before, talk to Professor Patel before planning.

Read about a student’s experience with one of the competitions:

“Participating in the Mulroy Real Estate challenge was one of the best choices I’ve made throughout my college career. Participating in this competition not only fostered valuable relationships with my peers and real estate professionals, but increased my understanding of Real Estate precipitously. Now that I’m employed by Marcus and Millichap; the #1 commercial real estate investment sales brokerage in North America, I feel fully equipped to tackle underwriting projects because of my participation in this competition. To be blunt, if real estate is an industry you want to go into, you would be foolish to not seek out and participate in one of these competitions.”

The second type of Senior Project consists of two parts. The first part concerns Real Estate License; the second part concerns ARGUS Certification. Details for the Real Estate Exam are here. Note that an official CA license is not required. After you pass the three modules, email the pictures of completion certificates to Professor Patel. Both ARGUS and a Real Estate License are costly and you are required to pay out of your own pocket. Find out the cost before you choose this option. For the ARGUS certification, email kmayfield@argussoftware.com and ask for a student discount.