Category: Uncategorized

This month, cultures worldwide recognize and celebrate women’s accomplishments. In what ways, if any, has recognizing these celebrated accomplishments of women in Real Estate impacted you as a woman entering that same career field?

As a woman entering the same career path as those who are recognized and praised by the media and organizations, I feel like I gain more confidence in building up my career journey. Highlighting women accomplishment posts inspire me to gain hands-on experience from different types of occupations in the real estate industry and do my best in every aspect. They are my role models and they teach me nothing is impossible and women can do great things just like men.

What prompted you to declare Real Estate as a major, and what have been some of your highlights as a student of the major?

I declared real estate as my major because I have been interested in property management, asset management, and portfolio management since when I was a little girl. I would love to build up a solid knowledge base of real estate and seek professional advice from professors, student ambassadors, and advisers regarding future career opportunities. I actively participate in group assignments and establish a bunch of good friendships with peers in class, which is something I am passionate about. In the future, I hope I can establish a bigger career network and ensure which occupation I would like to pursue.

Commercial Real Estate has traditionally been a male-dominated industry. How are women in today’s society working to change that narrative?

The best way to change the narrative that real estate is male-dominated industry is showing everyone that women are capable of doing great in real estate. Big achievements made by women in real estate are concrete evidence that gender cannot and should not permanently determine one’s occupational potential.

In the area of real estate, why is mentorship important to women?

Mentorship is important to women in real estate because a good mentor will guide you, support you, advise you, and help you to set up career goals and future career paths. A mentorship impacts career trajectory since we will have a better understanding of the real estate industry and corresponding career choices and future growth and the very start to slowly form our own network and personal achievements.

How can we empower young women interested in real estate careers?

To empower young women interested in real estate careers, we should set up informational seminars about the real estate industry every quarter and also encourage young women to find their potential by trying a variety of job positions in the real estate industry. Gender-assigned roles and occupations ingrained in most minds and we should educate young women that nobody can belittle their potential and dream career just because we are women and they should chase their dreams regarding negative prejudiced criticisms.

Join us live on February 10 as Gregg Colburn, assistant professor of real estate and longtime friend of NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, will moderate a discussion with astronaut Cassada, currently stationed on the ISS.

Simon Stevenson, the Chair of the Runstad Department of Real Estate and the John and Rosalind Jacobi Family Professor of Real Estate, has been awarded the 2018 Nick Tyrrell Research Prize for innovative applied research in real estate investment. The award is for the paper “Optimal Composition of Hybrid/Blended Real Estate Portfolios”, which was co-authored with former colleagues Frank Ametefe and Steven Devaney of the Henley Business School, University of Reading.

The prize is awarded annually by three of Europe’s leading real estate industry associations; the European Association for Investors in Non-listed Real Estate Vehicles (INREV), the Investment Property Forum (IPF) and the Society of Property Researchers (SPR). The prize is in memory of Nick Tyrrell, the former Head of Research & Strategy and a Managing Director in J.P. Morgan Asset Management’s European Real Estate Division, who passed away in August 2010. His research work was characterized by a combination of academic rigor and practical relevance.

The research considers the optimal mix of liquid, publicly traded assets that may be added to a real estate portfolio to provide enhanced liquidity while at the same time minimizing the impact on portfolio return. The performance and liquidity of real estate funds has become an issue of concern among investors, especially as the ability of investors to exit funds has often been compromised in periods following market shocks. Increasingly, institutional investors, such as UK defined contribution pension funds, are requiring increased liquidity from real estate funds, which they use to gain exposure to real estate as an asset class.

The research indicates that applying formal portfolio optimization techniques leads not only to benefits with respect to liquidity but also to an improvement in the ability of blended real estate products to track the underlying benchmark index. The authors will be presenting their findings at a special industry seminar in London in the spring of 2019, date to be confirmed. A similar event will be held in Seattle. A copy of the Prize-winning paper is available here:

Earlier this month, faculty members Gregg Colburn and Rebecca Walter presented at the Urban Affairs Association Annual Conference in Toronto. Below is an abstract of Gregg’s session on housing subsidies.

Session Title: Housing Subsidies: Housing Choice and Quality

Paper Title: Housing Market Conditions and the Housing Choice Voucher Program

Since the 1970s, housing vouchers have become the primary mode of federal housing support for low-income households in the U.S. The voucher program was designed to provide recipients with the choice and flexibility needed to secure higher quality housing in neighborhoods with lower levels of segregation and poverty. Decades of analysis suggest that the housing outcomes of program beneficiaries have failed to produce the favorable outcomes envisioned by policymakers. To add to our understanding of the outcomes of this important federal program, this paper seeks to underscore the importance of context-dependent policy analysis. In particular, this study analyzes the impact of housing market conditions on the outcomes achieved by voucher recipients. Using neighborhood and housing outcome data from the American Housing Survey, and rental market vacancy data from the U.S. Census, I demonstrate the important role that market conditions play in program outcomes. The results from this study suggest that voucher recipients are successful at improving housing unit quality outcomes regardless of market conditions, but the ability to move to a better neighborhood is a function of market conditions. While voucher holders find improved housing and better neighborhoods in cities with higher vacancy rates, expensive coastal cities with low vacancy rates present a profound challenge for housing authorities and voucher recipients as they seek to administer and use vouchers in tight market conditions.