Newswise — First place in The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School's annual Real Estate Finance Challenge went to the Haas School of Business at University of California at Berkeley for the second year in a row.
The McCombs School's team came in second place and Harvard took third place.
"This competition is better and much more effective than any classroom experience," said Julie Golderer, a member of the Haas School's team. "It takes unbelievable effort to evaluate the case in two days and get a strong presentation assembled, but participating in this challenge is an honor and we're thrilled to have won."
A cash prize of $5000 went to the winning team, while second and third place teams each received $1000.
The competition is the largest graduate real estate finance challenge in the country and draws student teams from twelve of the top business schools, including Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg, UCLA, Harvard and Columbia.
Goldman Sachs & Co. provided this year's case, which cast students as a global real estate opportunity fund presented with a retail strip mall center suffering from multiple problems. The property was situated on contaminated soil, had a high vacancy rate, was difficult to subdivide and was surrounded by significant market competition. In two days, teams had to decide whether to sell, reposition or redevelop the neglected property, develop an articulate and thorough argument, and defend their choice in a 20-minute, polished presentation to judges from financial institutions such as Banc of America Securities, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.
"The case that we gave the teams this year was much harder and more complicated than last year's, and the judges had a harder time ranking our top teams this year," said Todd Williams, Managing Director of Goldman Sachs in Dallas. "These students did in two days what professionals may have taken several months to do, and they definitely raised the bar significantly this year " the performances were exceptional. This is the best way for graduate students to experience what it's like to be a real estate professional."
The Real Estate Finance Challenge is sponsored by the McCombs School's Center for Real Estate Finance, an academic center that is the focal point for the creation of a nationally recognized real estate program at The University of Texas at Austin.
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