Masters Degree in Real Estate

All | A.CRE 101 | Graduate Education | Special Topics | Book Reviews | CRE Terms | Find a Job

All | Masters in Real Estate | MBA in Real Estate | Undergraduate

If you’ve spent much time researching Masters in Real Estate programs online, you’ve likely noticed there is very little information out there. Unlike with the MBA, where school profiles, rankings, admissions advice, and reviews abound, trying to ascertain which graduate real estate program is right for you is a difficult task. And so, in response to this dearth of information online and as a service to those of you who have reached out to me with your questions on which Masters in Real Estate program to attend, we’re announcing the development of an in-depth series on graduate real estate programs.

Columbia | Cornell | MIT | NYU | Johns Hopkins | USC

What It is Not

This series is not an editorial on which school is the best. No ranking is applied, and no reviews are offered. Nor is this a critique of each program. This series strives to be a fact-based, comprehensive look at what differentiates each program from the rest.

This series does not assess MBA programs with real estate concentrations. While the MBA plus RE concentration is one post-grad education option for real estate professionals, this series specifically focuses on masters in real estate programs.

Why These Schools?

If your school is not on the list, please don’t take it personally or assume we think your school is inferior to those on this list. This series is the beginning of a greater effort to profile graduate real estate options. We hope to eventually profile the majority of graduate real estate programs, both in the United States and outside the United States, but we have to start somewhere and these schools were the most obvious choices.

Each school on this list has strong real estate alumni bases, at least 20 years of history teaching graduate real estate, and top rankings in other disciplines. If you ask most real estate professionals to list off graduate real estate options, these six will likely come to mind. And so these six schools made the most sense to profile first.

What to Expect from the Series

This series examines six areas of interest for each real estate program:

Description – Program name, degree(s) offered, location, year established, website address, and other basic descriptive information

Curriculum – Full-time versus part-time; one-year versus two-year; real estate disciplines taught; credits required for graduation; travel requirements; thesis or other capstone project

Culture – Immersive vs non-immersive; extracurricular activities; clubs; case studies; projects; class size and demographic make-up

Admissions – GMAT, GPA, work experience requirements and other admissions criteria; admissions process; acceptance rate; admissions schedule/deadliness

Careers – Career service offerings; placement statistics; salary figures; typical companies hiring from program; analysis of LinkedIn data of alumni

Q&A with Alumni – Answers from a multi-question Q&A/survey with one or more alumni from each school

Why Spend Our Time on This?

From its inception, AdventuresinCRE has endeavored to be more than just a real estate financial modeling blog. The blog is built around four topic areas: real estate modeling, careers, education, and events.

Our real estate financial modeling section is, to date, the most developed of our topic areas. In addition to our library of real estate financial models, our financial modeling section includes Excel tips and tricks, how-to videos, written tutorials, and other posts on modeling real estate in Excel and ARGUS. However, we are equally passionate about other areas of real estate – specially real estate careers, education, and events.

Our real estate careers section includes a comprehensive series on sectors, fields, functions, and compensation in real estate as well as posts on the basic skill sets needed for institutional real estate and on preparing for the technical real estate interview. It’s also the place where we bring up deals in the news that we find interesting, such as the Blackstone Stuy Town acquisition.

Our education section includes discussions on topics in real estate we’re interested in researching and sharing. This has led to the introduction of various education series’ such as one on leases and another on taxes. The education section also includes posts on the MBA vs. Masters in Real Estate question, and stochastic analysis in real estate. It is within this section that the Graduate Real Estate Program Profiles Series will be housed.

If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, please don’t hesistate to reach out.