The last two weeks have been busy, as we welcomed a new cohort of MSt in Real Estate students to Cambridge for their first residential of the course.
This cohort is as international as ever, with students travelling from Hong Kong and Germany, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Malaysia, as well as elsewhere in the UK, to take part. This is also our most gender-balanced cohort to date, with more than 40% female participants.
This first residential gave the group an opportunity to get to know one other and for the CRERC team at Land Economy to bring them up to speed with the course's first two core modules, 'Real Estate as an Asset Class' and 'Research Methods'. Lectures on real estate valuation principles, capital budgeting and gearing, and risk and return in the context of real estate investment were accompanied by sessions on critical reading, data issues, hedonic price modelling, time series analysis, qualitative research methods, and research design, led by Professors Thies Lindenthal, Helen Bao, and Colin Lizieri. A workshop on the dissertation component of the course was taught by Dr Carolin Hoeltken, while Dr Kayla Friedman (Programme Director at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership) provided an introduction to academic writing and research skills. Nick Mansley, the Course Director, ran a session on the real estate investment market and split the students into groups for a challenge to value and think about the performance prospects of a range of buildings in Cambridge, which they had just over a week to work on. Their findings were discussed in another session at the end of the residential.
Also featured in the intensive two-week schedule were talks and presentations from a wide range of excellent guest speakers on a broad range of topics in the industry. These included key issues in the real estate investment market, the planning system and process of getting approval, occupier perspectives and decision-making, sustainability, debt funding and restructuring debt, REIT dynamics, and AI and data-driven decision-making.
The group even found time for a day of tours and site visits in London, exploring Kings Cross and Coal Drops Yard, the New London Model at The London Centre, 22 Bishopsgate, and Broadgate with Alex Colvin and Geoff Scodie of British Land.
As crammed with teaching, learning, and discussion as the residential was, the cohort also benefited from time spent socialising, getting to know one another better, exploring the city, and sampling a taste of the traditional 'Cambridge experience', with a welcome dinner and drinks reception at the beautiful Sidney Sussex College and matriculation meals at Wolfson and Downing Colleges, where our students are lucky enough to now be life-long members. We hope that they enjoyed their first stay in Cambridge and look forward to welcoming them back again next March!