Real Estate Finance

Catalog description

This course is designed to give the student a rudimentary, business level understanding of how the acquisition of income producing commercial real estate is financed. No prior knowledge of business or real estate is needed, but the student should have some level of comfort with very basic math skills (multiplication, division and how to convert fractions into percentages). Students will come away from the course understanding the importance of the relationship between equity and debt, and why leverage (borrowing) is critical to real estate investing. The class will be taught through an in-class examination of a series of simple hypothetical case studies. Over the term of the course, students will learn the basic glossary of real estate investing terminology. Some basic legal concepts routinely found in real estate lending will also be taught. The in-school final exam will ask students to demonstrate their ability to understand a basic term sheet for a commercial real estate loan.