In late November, students from top Real Estate and MBA programs across the country competed in the University of Texas at Austin’s 18th Annual National Real Estate Challenge. Hosted by the McCombs School of Business, teams square off in a case-based real estate challenge judged by diverse real estate professionals from many of the top real estate firms in the nation. Competing schools this year included Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Georgetown, Harvard, Michigan, MIT, Northwestern, NYU, Penn, Rice, Texas, UCLA, UNC, USC, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Yale.
Cornell’s team was led by co-captains Jacob Tannenbaum (Baker ’21) and Parth Patel (Baker ’21). Team members included Ryan Meiser (Baker ’21), Ben Strine (Baker ’21), Alyssa Gallina (Baker ’21) and David Galstyan (Baker ’21). Faculty advisors who coached the team throughout the semester leading up to the competition included Michael Tomlan and Jon Minikes.
The case for this year’s competition was prepared by investment managers at Invesco and involved a critical look at the real estate market today as it relates to the timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic and the political state of today. The project then looked deeper into analyzing the potential of a new industrial development opportunity with the nuance of a short-term ground lease. Cornell’s response to the case centered on the idea that, “2020 is a chapter, not the story. Trends that already existed have been accelerated temporarily. Long-term, the direct effects of 2020 will be limited. Facts as we knew them before the pandemic should govern decisions over unsubstantiated theories of a new paradigm.”
The team received the case a week prior to the competition and had 72 hours to prepare and submit a response, including a beautifully crafted pitch deck. This year’s competition offered the opportunity to present in a unique manner, over Zoom, to a small panel of judges in a closed room. Winners from each of the four rooms were chosen to compete and present again in the competition finals to more judges.
Cornell has a proud history of using this competition as the climax to a deeply insightful, small, real-world, educational experience, made possible by the guidance of Jon Minikes. Only a select few have the honor of participating in the experience each year. The class and competition have a unique legacy in the Baker Program and the Johnson MBA Program, only truly understood by those who have had the honor to have participated.
