Assessing Commercial Real Estate Investments and Markets

As an institutional investor and allocator, I attended Assessing Commercial Real Estate Investments and Markets to gain insight into this important asset class and to address the complexities introduced by current events. Real estate is an enduring need that must be satisfied. Change, particularly events impacting the real estate market, creates opportunity to seek out and identify new real estate needs that can be profitable investments. Change also creates risks as opportunities from an earlier era lose their relevancy. In some sense real estate has become a better opportunity given recent events and trends but also is facing sizable risks to existing investments.

There are many aspects of the course I appreciated and from which I gained value. The faculty are exceptional, and the fellow students are all serious and experienced professionals. I particularly enjoyed interacting with the class to discuss various case studies of real estate investment opportunities and very much valued the panel of industry experts discussing their real estate investment strategies and current market events. Todd Sinai provided an excellent fundamental understanding of real estate, some great case studies, and a discussion of risks. Joseph Gyourko provided an interesting discussion of the impact of COVID-19. Asuka Nakahara generated an excitement for the opportunity of investing in real estate and made the market come to life with case studies. Maisy Wong provided an excellent, well organized discussion of global real estate investment.

Overall, the course provided me a deeper understanding of the opportunity and risks of investing in real estate as well as how to access real estate returns. I can now better allocate capital to real estate by understanding how that capital should be deployed among sectors, geographies, and instruments as well as how to manage the risks of that investment.

There is no doubt I will recommend this course as well as the other Wharton Executive Education offerings to investment professionals. Also, I have made a commitment to complete the excellent and professionally enriching Advanced Finance Program."

Scott Anderson CFA, Institutional Investment Management Executive

The Assessing Commercial Real Estate Investments and Markets program was timely and just right for me to learn more about this alternative asset class. We were in the midst of developing a product program for the launch of our real estate fund, and this program was perfect to help us complete our product launch. We needed to go deeply into the many real estate investment strategies such as lending, direct investments, public equities, etc. and to better grasp the advantages and drawbacks of each.

Attending the program provided us with the necessary tools, concepts, and strategies. We’ve gained clarity and confidence prior to rolling out our real estate fund. I returned to my organization with the critical insights and frameworks to structure our funds for the long run.

I also came out of the program equipped with new strategies to enhance operational efficiencies, to create value through improvements in operations, and to analyze a pro forma. I gained a better understanding of how critical the capital structure is in real estate, and to slice and dice the capital stack.

The session on what investors look at when going to countries outside of their home country was particularly valuable to me: understanding macro factors that make investors jittery such as a country’s foreign debt, foreign currency reserves, current account, and other factors. Moreover, the sessions on the changing face of real estate in cities, private equity investing, and property investing were all highly insightful and of immense value.

The high caliber of both the faculty and the participants contributed much to the learning experience. The faculty’s broad range of expertise enabled them to take academic lessons and apply them to the real world. My peers were experienced and knowledgeable, which enhanced the interaction inside as well as outside the classroom."

Jorge Quintanilla CEO, Capital Safi, La Paz, Bolivia

My company provides analytics for clients on the buy side and sell side of Wall Street. We deal with the analysis of securitized products, which have a number of different underlying products including commercial mortgage-backed securities. So in that respect we deal with real estate.

The program was terrific and really well structured. It covered all aspects of assessing and analyzing real estate investments. You gain an understanding of the risks and other aspects of real estate investment whether domestic or international. The lead professor, Todd Sinai, explained in detail about commercial real estate, real estate investment trusts, risk and pricing in housing markets, and taxation.

I really enjoyed Asuka Nakahara’s discussion of how to analyze real estate as a regular individual, whether it’s buying a home or investing as a general partner into apartments, for example. Another big takeaway for me was pro forma modeling and analyzing: we looked at a number of scenarios — different economic conditions — and modeled how a real estate investment would perform.

Also among my most valuable takeaways was an understanding of the risks and regulations involved in global investment. Maisy Wong brought us the global perspective, which was really an eye-opener for people who were not aware of some of the considerations of investing in other countries. Another important learning I acquired was how to identify an impending real estate crash. I appreciate having that perspective now.

I have already adopted some of the techniques from the program in my everyday work. For a couple of clients for whom I’m analyzing their investments, I have been able to identify risk factor scenarios and risk analysis of various traded instruments. And I have a fuller understanding of the different factors that affect the risk analysis of the products my company buys and sells.

Assessing Commercial Real Estate Investments and Markets was a very good program for anyone who wants to use real estate as an investment vehicle. I recommend it highly.”

Sanjay Rajaram President, ImagineSys Inc., Princeton, New Jersey

I am an angel investor, helping communities set up businesses. I help them with funds, advisory services, and business development. I own some real estate properties in Canada, the U.S., and China — that’s another part of my business — and for quite some time I’ve been wanting to get more involved in the real estate industry.

Assessing Commercial Real Estate Investments and Markets was an excellent program and was exactly what I was looking for. It helped me in many different areas. I am trying to extend my investments from residential to commercial, and it really helped me understand the big picture of the commercial real estate market. I appreciated learning more about different sectors such as apartment buildings, retail, and industrial.

Another important area for me was ROI and risk analysis. I gained more insight into business ROI so I can measure and quantify my investments in more detail. While I have used traditional risk analysis tools in this space, the course expanded my vision into using other valuable tools.

The professors, along with many of my classmates, provided me with a better understanding of market trends. This helped me define my next step in real estate investing. The program had a big impact on my business plan: I immediately changed my investment portfolio, and I purchased some REITs. Even when the stock market dropped recently, my REITs did pretty well. I have also decided to move some of my Canadian apartment building investments to the U.S., which is important to my plan.

Todd Sinai was a great course leader. Professors like him and Joseph Gyourko not only have plenty of knowledge and theory in this space, but they are successful and experienced in real estate themselves. The program was very practical and real world.”

Jacky Chen Investor and Business Advisor, York Angel Investors, Toronto, Canada

I am a professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics, so my professional job has no direct relationship with real estate. But I wanted to attend Assessing Commercial Real Estate Investments and Markets to understand the principles of real estate investment. I learned a lot from the program. It conveyed important information such as how to focus on the risk first, and how to use different techniques to project the profits and returns.

The faculty were terrific. There is a reason these individuals get to teach at Wharton! The academic director, Todd Sinai, was very knowledgeable and friendly. He did a great job of bringing together all these excellent professors and selecting topics that covered every major area of real estate investing. The most interesting parts of the course for me were the talks by Maisy Wong, who discussed international real estate investment. That really helped me open my mind and gave me a very good, real sense of how to do global investment.

The concepts, knowledge, and skills taught in this course go beyond real estate to other investment areas, such as how to foresee and control risk, how to assess an offer and the return, and how to develop personal relationships in order to improve your investments. The most important part of the program for me was it emphasized that in the end, it’s all about the people: your partners, clients, and contractors.

On a 1-10 scale I would give this program a 9. I want to congratulate Wharton for offering such a wonderful course.”

Song Liu, PhD Director of Bioinformatics, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, New York