Students Learn Asset Management Tools in New Course

Professor Jan deRoos
Professor Jan deRoos

Real estate asset managers fulfill an important role in portfolio managers as property managers. Successful asset managers provide decision-making support for owners and depending on the asset type and manager, can be deeply involved in the operation and long-term planning for the property. The School of Hotel Administration has developed a comprehensive new course, Hospitality Asset Management, taught by Associate Professor and HVS Professor of Hotel Finance and Real Estate Jan deRoos.

Professor deRoos brings a vast array of experience in hospitality real estate, with a focus on the valuation, financing, development, and operation of lodging, timeshare, and restaurant assets. The course is unique; about half of the course content is online, through a system called eCornell. Students can learn from online content and complete assignments online at a set pace, and the class meets once a week for a presentation seminar and class discussion. “The course setup is ideal. As graduate students, we tend to be quite busy throughout the week. The ability to complete a portion of the course on my schedule has been beneficial,” said Clayton Roach (Baker ’15).

The course splits into seven modules that teach asset management fundamentals and practices through a topic-by-topic approach that builds upon each preceding set. The first module introduces portfolio management so that students can frame their thinking for the next module, asset management, which goes through the basics of how asset managers work and think. Module three explains the sell-vs.-hold Decision-Making process, challenging students to complete their analysis in spreadsheet methods. Module four discusses hotel management contracts, a research topic of Professor deRoos. His body of work on the topic will be published in the upcoming edition of “Hotel Asset Management,” edited by Greg Denton, Lori E. Raleigh, and A.J. Singh.

Capital expenditures and capital plans are a major portion of the asset manager’s role, and module five is devoted to teaching students the planning, budgeting, monitoring, and revenue evaluation methods. In module six, the course teaches students how to benchmark the performance of hotel properties, while module seven teaches techniques to analyze risk, and how to refinance and leverage debt.

The course material has been collected and refined through years of careful assessment by the real estate field faculty, and it provides students the best possible training in hospitality asset management. Hospitality Asset Management is one of the many benefits of the Baker Program in Real Estate, a specialized two-year Master’s Degree Program offered by Cornell University.

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