So the Department has been locked down and closed since 16th March 2020.  Almost a whole Year!

And is doesn’t look like the building will be re-opening anytime soon.

However, the business of CRERC has not stopped as staff and students have adapted to teaching and learning remotely.  Here’s a snapshot of what’s currently going on.

The MSt goes Virtual and a new Executive Education Programme

"The course is designed to be highly interactive and this naturally works better in a face to face setting."

Nick Mansley, Course Director

Both the 2019 and 2020 cohorts of students have been affected by the Coronavirus situation and teaching has had to be online since last March.   This has worked reasonably well but we are keen to resume face to face teaching as soon as UK and global guidance allows. 

Ordinarily, it is not possible to undertake the MSt remotely online, and our aspiration and intention for the 2021 intake in September is still for the course to be its usual combination of distance and residential (Cambridge-based) teaching/learning as outlined in our prospectus and on our webpages.

CRERC has a new postgraduate-level course launching this year.  Developed in collaboration with local company Bayfield, the Real Estate Financial Modelling Certificate is an eight-week online course aimed at those wanting to get into analyst positions or analysts wanting to improve their skills. The course focuses on how to use Real Estate Financial Models to make informed investment decisions.  A brochure will be available shortly via the Bayfield website.

The CRERC Data Book has been completely revised and is available via the Land Economy Intranet and VLE.

Research and Working Papers

Although for many of our academic staff in CRERC the emphasis has been on teaching both the department’s undergraduate and postgraduate courses online, they have still been focussing on research.

Colin Lizieri has written a thought piece called Maestros and Mythologies – some lockdown reflections. 

Published in the JPIF 2020 – link to article.

Helen Bao’s paper Dependence and Loss Aversion in Residential Property Development Decisions:  Evidence from Beijing, co-authored with Charlotte Meng and Jing Wu, has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Housing and the Built Environment.

Also, Helen’s ESRC project on behavioural finance is in its final stage, but progress has been affected by the pandemic and travel restrictions outside the UK.

Thies Lindenthal has had two papers accepted for publication by the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics:

Machine Learning, Architectural Styles and Property Values co-authored with Erik Johnson.

Are Estimates of Rapid Growth in Urban Land Values an Artifact of the Land Residual Model? with John Clapp and Jeff Cohen.

And Congratulations to Thies for winning a J M Keynes Fellowship in Financial Economics. This is a Very Big Deal Indeed and possibly the first time anyone in the Department has been recognised in this way.  Thies has also been elected to the Board of Directors of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (AREUEA).

Carolin Schmidt has recently joined the team as Senior Teaching Associate in Real Estate, Finance and Economics.  Although she has been concentrating on teaching this term, she too has various research projects in progress including a policy paper on reverse mortgages in Europe.

Carolin has also been invited to participate in a multi-author case study project on rental markets in developed countries, and will join a live-streamed panel discussion in April being broadcast to approx.. 1000 researchers and policy makers worldwide.

Christina Li and Wayne Wan are collaborating on a loss aversion paper and a working paper on the impact of COVID on gated communities.

Ozge Oner has had several papers published including:

Regional Science Perspectives on Tourism and Hospitality in (with Ferrante, M and Fritz, O) in Advances in Spatial Science.

Microgeography of Restaurants: Sub-City Analysis of Restaurant Location and Colocation Using Swedish Geo-Coded Data in Regional Science Perspectives on Tourism and Hospitality

Nick Mansley, Franz Fuerst and Zilong Wang all have various research papers currently under review for publication later this year.

Franz has joined the PATRIZIA Advisory Board, is continuing as Academic Advisor to VERT Real Estate, and is also continuing as Co-Editor of the Spatial Economic Analysis journal.

Virtual Research Seminars

Thies Lindenthal is continuing to help organise a series of bespoke online sessions on all aspects of real estate.  For more details see:  https://www.seminar.re/

The Cambridge Real Estate Research Club 2021

Sadly, due to the ongoing COVID situation there are so far no plans to hold a research club event this year.

CRERC 25/02/2021