Day one of "Corporate Real Estate"

Dr. Margaret Latshaw, Started the class with introductions to JE Dunn (multi-billion dollar construction company) who shared their process of deciding where they were to put their corporate headquarters. Terry Dunn was accompanied by Greg Nook. They told the candid challenging story of their four year process step by step. They made some valuable observations about the real estate process.
Dr. Latshaw's personal experience working with Sprint, H&R Block and Bank of America has proven valuable in her design of this course. After JE Dunn's presentation, Margaret shared a academic discussion of corporate real estate based on our assigned readings, followed by a visit by Wayne Mathison who ran a 300 person corporate real estate department and is now a private consultant. We continued with a working lunch with Justin Chamberlain head of real estate from H & R Block and their retail portfolio. The challenges of opening up over 100 retail locations per month can be quite daunting. They outsource a large portion of their portfolio to Cassidy Turley and following Justin, we heard from Rich Etzkorn from Cassidy Turley who not only works with H&R Block but also is very involved with Edward Jones 12,000 locations around the country.
We'll close today with a review by me (Walt Clements) on some financial spreadsheets used to measure cost of occupancy that was introduced in our "on-line" sessions and then some presentation tips as the students prepare to make some presentations next month.
Holiday wishes to all.

First day of 'Capital Markets and Real Estate"

The “Capital Markets and Real Estate” course started yesterday under the instruction of Dr. Randy Anderson, the Director of the real estate program at the University of Central Florida. He comes with personal experience as a real estate investor as an individual and as a general partner in a private equity fund. His research in investment properties international and practical experience was evident as he shared his process for evaluating the four basic property types. Which property type should you be invested in and more importantly why? We learned which exogenous shocks to look for and how they impact our real estate investment decisions. We identified the major indicators to track and the free data websites from which to extract meaningful data and what it means. We discussed the possibilities of inflation, when interest rates were going to increase and more importantly. Most importantly he provides the factual data that makes Kansas City a prime location for institutional investment capital right now. He is an advisor to an investment firm who recently bought two large apartment complexes in Olathe, KS. Knowledge truly is Power!

Re = Rd + LR(Rp-Rd)

Another formula to measure leverage and corresponding risk associated with taking on more leverage. Practical insights were discussed concering what to consider when making forecasts of income and future sale price. Practical insights from experience.

That formula coupled with the simple Gordon Growth Model can provide some practical "back of the napkin" assessments when you consider real estate investing.

Dr. Anderson and Dr. Clark offered detailed explanations of how secondary markets work as well as the CMBS markets. How they work, and how we can use them.

Another information packed day.

November Update on Executive Masters Program

The third month of the Executive Master’s in Entrepreneurial Real Estate is now in session.  Yesterday we concluded the “Urban Planning”  course with a simulated case study and role play of the Polsinelli Building Proposal with members of the class playing the roles of,” Highwoods”,” Save our Plaza” folks, “Planning Commission” and “City Council”.  It was quite engaging and interesting.  This follows  personal presentations by Vickie Noteis who represented the “Save Our Plaza” group and Jan Marcusson, City Councilwoman. 

 In addition,  Forest City , Inc (one of our country’s largest developers)  sent, John Neely, one of their lead developers to spend the day with us to talk about how they consider the urban plan of a community and how they engage with the urban planners to decide whether or not they want to proceed with a development.  They were the re-developers of Stapleton Airport in Denver and many more extremely large developments around the country.  Some of the students are talking about potential transactions with him now. 

Today, we launch into the last two days of the Advanced Real Estate Finance course where the students will take their compounding and discounting business math skills to the next level on the HP 10B II and Excel Spread Sheets with over 40 preprogrammed templates to work from.  We will do “real estate development modeling” Front Door and Back Door Analysis and prepare  the final exam.

Very exciting!

- Walt Clements, Director of the LWREC

Real Estate Student Wins Huge Award!!

Shane Spencer, our Sherman Drieseszun Scholarship Recipient of last year, was awarded the "Entrepreneurial Student of the Year" at the 26th annual awards banquet this month.
Shane's advanced real estate education in addition to his entrepreneurial studies enabled him to create the "Green REIT" for energy oriented real estate investments. Shane has secured a quarter of a million dollars in venture capital funding to go public as soon as he secures one more IRS ruling on the offering memorandum.
Shane took every real estate class we offered and was a serious student. He also participated in the ULI Gerald D. Hines national competition earlier this year in collaboration with Kansas State's Architectural program. While we didn't get the "grand prize" for the Hines competiton, the participation itself was an invaluable experience.
Congratulations to Shane on his rapid journey to becoming a millionaire.

Real Estate Student Wins Huge Award

Shane Spencer, our "Sherman Dreiseszun" real estate scholarship reciepient has won the coveted top prize of the Entrepreuership school's annual competition to become the "Student Entrepreneur of the Year".

With the help of his advanced real estate education through the White Real Estate Center and his entrepreneurial classes, he created the 'Green REIT". Subject to a pending IRS ruling Shane has secured a quarter of a million dollars of venture capital to move his REIT to the open market.

"Shane enrolled in every real estate class offered and was an outstanding student in all" according to Professor Clements, the Director of the White Center. Shane also competed earlier this year in the Urban Land Institute

Second Full day of Urban Planning Studies

Vickie Notyce offered her side of the "Polsinelli/ Highwoods Vs "Save the Plaza Group?
It was indeed interesting to see the distinct opposite views of the same set of facts.
The class will be divided into opposing groups representing each side to present their view in an attempt to convince the City Council to stop or not stop the office building. (Our mock City Council will not be allowed to recuse themselves from the decision)

We learned how to become involved in the E-Scholars program with the direction of Beverly Stewart from the IEI department.

After a tour of the Miller Nichols Library and the new "Roo-bot," we reviewed other authors' views of Kansas City's overall growth based on sociol and demographic variables.

More to come......