A Study into the Important Elements of a Masters Degree in Real Estate

Abstract. This paper reports the methodology utilized by dint of the members of the University of San Diego's Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate to lay open a program and curriculum for graduate studies in real estate. It emphasizes the potential alternatives and describes the choices made by the agency of Center faculty regarding the mark of program, the desired topics and skills to be taught, course satisfied and delivery. The results indicate that the essential ne of any graduate real estate program is to provide up-to-date, high quality real estate education that supports the development of technical, social and technological skills.

This article is the winner of the Real Estate Education Manuscript Prize (sponsored through Dearborn Financial Publishing and the Real Estate Education Association) at handed at the 2003 American Real Estate Society Annual Meeting.

Introduction

This article describes the proces used by means of the faculty and staff of the University of San Diego's Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate in the creation of a graduate horizontal program in real estate. In the latter part of the 1990 the Policy Advisory Board for the real estate program began discussing the creation of a graduate real estate program. In 2000 the real estate faculty and staff started laying the groundwork for similar a program. In 2002, the one and the other faculty and staff accelerated their efforts, exploring the websites and materials of existing programs, as well as literature upon real estate education. The faculty relied upon the academic literature concerning real estate education, discussions with several focus assemblages and a task force, as well as originates from two surveys: graduates of an established real estate program and real estate professionals from the San Diego community. Using the information from these sources, a program and curriculum was created for graduate studies in real estate. The research methodologies exerciseed demonstrated that real estate is a compounded asset and the real estate industry is a multidisciplinary field.

The varied and compound nature of real estate studies, including real estate law, real estate finance, real estate appraisal, real estate equity investments, urban land economics, real estate exhibition secondary mortgage markets and real estate asset management, require more than a sum of two units or three course sequence. Professionals in the real estate industry ne skills beyond the traditional graduate business education, with an emphasis upon the important multidisciplinary aspects of real estate. Employer want their fresh hires to be able to "hit the loam running." The market place wants technically proficient, technologically trained and socially adept real estate entrepreneurs

Literature Review

Published literature regarding real estate education emphasizes research in individual of two general categories: (1) gymnasiums programs and curriculum1 and (2) the skill places necessary to work proficiently and productively as a real estate professional.2 Although real estate has been taught since the early 1890 it was not until the late 1970 and early 1980 when a major debate began to take place and real estate education began to take sum of two units separate paths: a multidisciplinary approach (Graaskamp 1977 1978 1984) and a financial management approach (Dasso and Woodward, 1980; and Boykin, 1985) Real estate educators were not in agreement upon the state of the discipline. More importantly, as real estate struggl to find its place as part of the belonging to all body of knowledge in business administration, the entrance level course covering a variety of real estate topics, Real Estate Principles, remained an elective in many of the programs (Cam and Rabianski, 1986)

In the 1990 a certain number of educators continued to question the lack of evolution in the curriculum of existing real estate programs.3 In addition, research findings showed a glaring separation between curriculum requirements and constituent urgencys (Wells and Williams, 1993). Notwithstanding, several programs challenged the traditional teaching rules and curriculum, emphasizing that learning stood the best chance of occurring when tasks to be learned mimicked real-life situations (Butler Guntermann and Wolverton, 1998) Concurrently a certain quantity of real estate educators agreed that real estate should have a social ethic to gain academic respectability (Graaskamp, 1977; Boykin, 1985; and Pearson, 1988)

Today, the exhibition and management of a graduate real estate program and its curriculum are limited by means of two common issues. First, among real estate academicians, there is a lack of agreement above a common body of knowledge that should form the core course offering for any program. next to the first it appears that many curriculums are driven by the agency of faculty availability and the willingness to teach these classes, rather than the necessitys of the industry that will eventually engage the real estate graduate. For example, Weeks and Finch (2002) lay the foundation of that there does not appear to be a single real estate class presented uniformly by schools offering an undergraduate major in real estate. In addition, classes of the like kind as real estate law and real estate market analysis require specialization not oftentimes available in smaller business seminarys There is, however, some consistency within a "typical" undergraduate real estate program. Real estate principles, finance, appraisal or valuation, law and investments are base in the typical undergraduate real estate program.