Growing beyond my expectations: The Kellogg-GSB Real Estate Challenge

This past quarter I got selected to work with a team on a Real Estate Competition between Kellogg and the GSB. Essentially both schools come up with a proposal for a plot of land which is for sale by the City of Chicago. For Kellogg which has a phenomenal RE program, it is actually run as a independent project and counts as a class. For us, just a competition; it has been held every year for the past 6 years. Having barely any Real Estate background, except for a project I worked on in Lao P.D.R., I felt it would be a great way to learn more about the industry. Our team had one 2nd year who had a RE background so she really helped lay the groundwork for what needed to be done.

Ironically, our project proposed developing a student housing development with a retail component, and so did Kellogg’s. I didn’t get to see their presentation but given the fact that the judges deliberated for an hour and a half to decide the winner, we as a team with no Real Estate coaches to guide us through felt we had really accomplished something! We have only won this competition once before and lost 5 times, but despite the chips stacked against us, we felt we could give them a fight, so our goal had certainly been accomplished.

In fact, we have one of their faculty joining our school next year to develop the real estate program. I have really developed a love for Real Estate through this project and by far have found my macroeconomic skills most applicable in terms of understanding market dynamics and the correlation with trends in demand forces. In a month I leave for a summer in investment banking and am hoping I shall get my top group preference, which was real estate.

When the judges came out with the result, the GSB had won for only the second time ever and the first time in the past 4 yrs. It feels great to have accomplished this, and while the win is the icing on the cake, all value had been added much before.

For someone with a macroeconomics background, to be able to work on a Real Estate project, learn from colleagues, who have had experience in the field, and with an architect who helped in adding color to a vision, is another testament to what an oyster of opportunity business school is.