Leeds School of Business student Jake Rome watched University of Singapore business students whip his team in a real estate contest last year and learned an important lesson.
“I learned that you can spend all the time in the world on the numbers, but if you can’t pitch your deal well and get your point across efficiently, then the numbers are essentially meaningless,” he said.
Rome was a member of the five-person team that the University of Colorado business school sent to the International Real Estate Case Competition held by the University of Southern California Marshall School.
The competition in Los Angeles draws teams from business schools around the world.
Students receive a hypothetical building and development case set in a fictional city and country.
Their job: Develop a plan to acquire a real estate asset, set pricing levels, find financing and develop strategies to mitigate risk.
Next week, Rome, 22, gets to try again. He will be joined by four other students who will be taking part in the contest for the first time.
The competition starts April 12, when teams get an electronic copy of a hypothetical building and development case.
“The subject matter is relevant even though it is a fictional case,” said Adam Lightman, 23, who is studying for bachelor’s degrees in engineering and business. “We consider what a real developer in the real world will consider.”
Four days later, in Los Angeles, they will make presentations to real estate brokers, investment bankers, and other real estate professionals.
To qualify for the team, candidates had to give a five-minute presentation to a panel of teachers.
“We wanted to see competence in presentation skills. We had their resumes, and we knew what their grades were,” said Adam Massey, a real estate investor and instructor at Leeds.
Last year, Massey coached the team, which was selected from one class he taught.
“This year we have more faculty and real estate professionals involved to help the students,” Massey said.
To practice for the competition, the students have developed presentations based on complex real estate scenarios that they present to a panel of local real estate professionals.
The pros tell the students what worked in their analysis and what didn’t.
“Instead of me saying, ‘I liked this,’ we get 15 or 20 professionals saying, ‘When somebody comes to me with an idea, this is what I like to see,’ ” Massey said.
The CU Real Estate Center covers the cost of the competition; its members coach the students.
The participants “learn a tremendous amount about the complexity of the real estate industry,” Massey said.
Winning the contest could improve students’ post-graduation employment prospects, said Rome, who doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t interested in real estate.
“Even as a kid, I would go into the woods behind my house and mark off a section of land and sell it to the other kids as a place to build a fort,” he said.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
Pitching the deal
Students at CU’s Leeds School of Business will compete against teams from around the world in the International Real Estate Case Competition next week.
