MSc Real Estate / Investment & Finance

I noticed you are from Australia so I was wondering if you could shed any light on how good UNSW's Property & Development MSc is.

hi mate,

as far as australian programs and their reputation im not too knowledgeable on the matter mainly because I didn´t have any desire to study here. The university itself is excellent and I did spend some time looking at the course outline and I wasn´t impressed because it is the same subject matter as undergraduate level studies. I know University of Queensland has a program but again, falls into undergrad level however, the University of Melbourne (Australia´s premier business school) has a pretty decent course although it is 2 years and even a 3 year option. I personally find them too lenient on the appraisal and acquistion aspect and more focussed on town planning and construction (just they way we operate here) but 2 years is too long not to mention the cost of tuition is more here than it was for Reading.

Initially, I really wanted to go to Columbia to do my MSRED there, but because I'm an international student, it would cost at least $100,000 and that is a joke when you compare the degree. MBA would be a stretch to justify with this sort of money. I find the problem with a lot of the Ivy League schools is that people go there for the name rather than the course which is fine in the US, but i think outside it doesn't matter too much. If prestige was a decision making factor for my MSc in the UK, I would choose UCL but the course is poor compared to others in my opinion. Columbia is aimed at people wanting to start up their own business, Cornell et al i would rather do an MBA with a real estate concentration. They arn't known for research in this area, nor place highly in table's for this field.

As my goal is development (hotel/resort development would be amazing to do), I'm choosing University of Reading because it's the #3 centre for real estate in the world and #1 in Europe and the oldest school for real estate in the world. The US probably doesn't know much about it, but I'm sure if you talked to people who are in the development side rather than the investment/finance side, they would know what it is. I just think people over there can be quite naive and ignorant when it comes to overseas education. I would say on a like for like comparison, UCL would be Columbia (UCL is #4 in the world) and Cass is very much like NYU as NYU does have some subjects through Stern and Cass is heavily financed orientated, but taking the money equation out of it, Columbia hands down. But I also think NYC days of absolute power are limited and studying in the UK would open your opportunities in Europe.

Now you will also have to make a distinction between development and investment and which path you would like to pursue because there isn't a crossover between to two masters. I've found the if you want a MSc REI, you'll be involved with commercial appraisal and a bunch of boring ****e imo. Development will have you involved with assessing the feasibility of developments, design, construction etc. etc. so it is much more holistic. The best part of development for me is working through everything rather than punching in numbers from a spreadsheet and moving onto the next job. Cass's program will wedge you into fund management roles and commercial real estate, UCL will have you working more planning i think. If you want development I'd seriously look at Reading.

Interesting debate here. I am at a current MsRED in the US after looking at UK options.



Actually I would say it is the other way around. Americans will be more picky with your particular degree rather than your university. You will not impress anyone in NYC with a Columbia degree (probably half of the city has one) so you will have to say that you are a MsRED student. On the other hand, probably in Australia (or almost anywhere in the world), you can say you are a "Columbia grad"... and that's enough.

Comparing the UK and US R.E. degrees is a bit like comparing oranges to apples.

UK degrees are more suited for people with no experience (directly from u-grad) that want to kick into their first job at RE finance at JLL or CBRE.

US degrees are more suited for people with experience (most of them do not accept people with no experience, and average experience at MIT is around 5-6 years) and more orientated to development than to finance. In the good pre-recession times starting average salaries for schools like MIT were over $100k, not lower than a MBA.... and quite far from the £21k you posted before. In Masters in Real Estate your previous experience also counts a lot on your future job prospects.

So it is not that A is better than B... they are just different.

Columbia is not really aimed for people to start their own business (even MBAs are not). The issue about Columbia is that their class is really large (+100 people). Other masters (Cornell, Harvard, MIT, etc.) are about 20-25 students per year... and that helps placing students in the job market; Real Estate is quite limited in terms of job opportunities (compared to, for instance, an MBA or Master in Finance). So the "entrepreneurship" thing seems a bit like an excuse.

I can agree with you in the MBA comparison. However, I met quite a few MSRED grads from different programs (and reading the replies here, it seems it also happens in the UK) with MBA. The tricky question is that an MBA from a very top university will probably get you into R.E. if you want even if you don't have previous experience; yet a less-than-Top 5/10 MBA will not if you don't have a R.E. background.



When I looked at the UK, the two most interesting looked LSE and Cambridge... LSE more market-orientated and Cambridge more academic-orientated. Plus Cambridge is quite cheap.

Real Estate is a kind-of soft-degree (has anyone ever seen a ranking of Masters of Real Estate, like MBAs?) and MANY people have never heard about those kind of Masters of Real Estate (even in R.E. industry), so university-brand is more important than in other Masters. And for UK universities, LSE and Cambridge hands down in terms of recognition. Reading to me seemed interesting for the part-time option, and Cass looked a bit of a "cash-cow", job prospects out of that Master looked pretty grim.

Exactly, I felt that UK programs are very much onto getting the RICS accreditation, so that's good if you are a recent undergrad... but it does not make much sense if you already have the experience. Yet I found that quite a few part-time students at UK masters already had experience.

You are probably right about Columbia, but again, Columbia is 4 to 5 times LARGER than any other Master... so they may have people from different backgrounds. And don't forget that in the US (which I think it is pretty cool) you can do an undergrad in sociology and your Master degree in Architecture or Law... and it is not an issue as in most of the world.

MBA is important in R.E. if you want to go "up the ladder" in the typical Real Estate consultancy firms (JLL, CBRE...)... not to mention that you need a Top MBA (or top undergrad to begin from scratch) if you want to go to stuff like Blackstone or Carlyle... so again, two different things. Anyway I don't think that MBA would be a burden to deal with all the people involved in a project.

As for the cost, most American degrees (esp. at an Ivy university or similar - MIT, Stanford, etc. -) look quite exorbitant to almost anyone else in the world, but that's how things are in the US... you take it or you leave it.

I didn't look much at LSE, but probably in the UK I still think would be the best option (and I don't really think that it is as "ridiculous" as you say). I think you really underestimate the brand name, especially in Real Estate education, where there are no rankings. Where are most developments now? Sorry to say, but a Real Estate degree right now is quite useless in the US or most of Europe... so you want to go to Asia, Latin America or the Middle East... you better go with a brand-degree.

Hey, really glad that I came across this thread as its got plenty of good information. Some of you would have started your programs by now.
If you could give some feedback of your experience thus far, it would really help the rest of us with some added perspective.

Glad I came across this post as well. I too would be interested in any insight from those currently on a course.

Also, is it really true that LSE does not have a good reputation for their real estate course?

hi gigi. i think i saw u from the other thread? do u have acceptance to LSE's course too?

well i emailed a guy who's doing that course now.. and he said that very few of his coursemates have got a fulltime job this year (something like 5 out of a class of 40-50).

also, it is apparently more urban economics focused, with not much emphasis on finance.

can anyone verify this information? thanks.