Course Objective: This course is designed to expose students to a wide range of contemporary investment philosophies in the special context of real estate investing.  Each week, leading professionals or academics will speak on a particular approach to real estate investing, how it is put into practice, and the extent to which it is successful.

Grading: Grading will be based on active participation which will be measured using the following metrics:

• Class attendance

• Class participation: Each student is responsible for doing research on the speaker, the deals, the company he or she represents and the company strategies prior to that speaker's presentation.  Each student is expected to come to class with 2 written questions for each speaker.  Questions will be submitted to the professors at the end of each class.

• Preparing Transcripts of Speaker: Each student will be assigned or will be allowed to sign up for several speakers (outside speakers only). The student is responsible for taking notes (via tape recorder) and transcribing these notes.  These notes will be posted to the website.  Transcripts are due one week from the date of the speaker's presentation.

• Case Study: Students are allowed to work in groups. The size of each group will depend on the number of students enrolled in the class divided into the number of Harvard cases (4 cases).  For example, if there are 16 students enrolled then there will be 4 members to a group.  The group will be responsible for a written analysis of the case and preparing a 15 minute in-class presentation of the case.

• Critique of Case: Each group will be assigned the role of critiquing another group's written analysis of the case.

Harvard Business Cases:
Midwest Corporate Fund (Product Number 392070).
Asia Property Ltd (Product Number 899145)
JKJ Pension Fund (Product Number 395133).
Yale University Investments Office (Product Number 296040).
 

*TBA (To be announced): Readings, to the extent possible, are assigned to coincide with the topic of each speaker.  Since some speakers have not indicated when they are available to speak, either Professor Brown or Liu will announce what chapter(s) to read for that class.