Advanced Real Estate Development and Finance
Faculty: Richard Peiser, William Apgar, Camille Douglas, James Hoffman, and Glenn Mueller. This course builds on GSD 5204 and comparable introductory real estate courses offered by other schools at Harvard. Using case studies and lectures, the course focuses on real estate finance and development for all major real estate product-types including apartments, office, retail, industrial, and land development. The course emphasizes financial structuring and key decision-making for all phases of the development process including site selection, due diligence, design, financing, construction, leasing , operations, and sales. The course covers five main topics: advanced financial analysis for land and building development, Mortgage-backed securities and residential securitization, CMBS and commercial securitization, REITs and public real estate markets, and portfolio analysis. The objective of the course is to give students in-depth financial analytical skills for the dominant forms of real estate financing, fund management, and development.The course will be team-taught by five faculty, coordinated by Professor Richard Peiser. Each faculty member is a specialist in the area they are covering in the class:
- Richard Peiser – land and community development, 5 stages of income property analysis, non-performing loans
- Bill Apgar – mortgage-backed securities and residential securitization
- Camille Douglas – commercial mortgage backed securities and commercial securitization
- Glenn Mueller – Real estate investment trusts and cycle analysis
- James Hoffman – Portfolio analysis
ReadingsProfessional Real Estate Development: the ULI Guide to the Business, 2nd Edition, by Richard Peiser, published by The Urban Land Institute, Washington, D.C., 2003.(PRED)Articles and case studies assigned by the faculty for each class.Assignments and GradingCase studies will be the focus of most class sessions. Students are encouraged to work together in study groups to prepare the cases for discussion and to perform the analytical computations emphasized in each case. Each professor may give homework assignments that are due on the date of the class for which the homework is assigned. They may also take class participation and case presentations into account. There will be a single major term paper that will constitute the major basis for grading. Students will select one of the five faculty members to work with on their term paper. It is expected that they will consult the faculty member at least twice during the term. That faculty member will be responsible for giving the student feedback on the term paper and for issuing a grade. Term projects may be any one of the following: (1) a term paper on a topic selected by the student, (2) preparation of a case study, or (3) analyzing a complex deal, fund, or other investment