School of Architecture and Planning

See Stellar Materials Resources.

This is the white paper that Kevin Fagan discussed in recitation March 19 that he (and Keith) produced earlier this year that was controversial among the CMBS issuing banks and among other rating agencies competing with Moody's, but welcomed by the bond investment constituency.

Dear Class,

We will go over last week's exam in our Thursday class this week. The median score was 71 percent, with a standard deviation of +/- 16%. I am overall satisfied with the exam performance though a very few were pretty low (and a few were stars). I recognize that type of exam may have a high "random" component in its grading. (The score on that exam may have a high "Type 2 error", that is, the low scores may be a weak signal of your actual learning.)

The exam is overall only 45% of the course grade, and no one is in any danger of getting below a "B" in the course PROVIDED you complete all the course requirements. A few of you have yet to post anything on the Forum, which means you are at this point getting ZERO of the 25% class participation component of the course grade. You have until Thursday, last day of class, to make such a post!

Don't forget! Please come to recitation tomorrow evening. We have Kevin Fagan coming up from New York. Kevin is a CRE alum,VP Senior Analyst, Director of CMBS Research at Moody's Investors Service, the premier CMBS bond credit rating agency. The rating agencies are central to the functioning of the CMBS industry. He will bring hardcopy handouts but is not allowed to distribute electronically. Kevin will be accompanied by Keith Leung, also a CRE alum who works with Kevin at Moody's. (If you're in Walter's Mortgage Securitization class, let them know that they're all invited as well.)

Tuesday morning this week we will have Mike Acton as a Guest Presenter. I have posted his slides in the Stellar Materials folder, in the Resources section there. Mike is MD and Head of Research at AEW Capital Mgt, one of the largest and leading managers of institutional real estate investment worldwide, with $75 billion AUM (and several CRE alums on their staff). Mike is superb at seeing the forest through the trees to help us understand the status of the US and world economy especially as it relates to the current state and near-to-medium term prospects for the institutional real estate investment industry. Don't miss it!

I highly recommend the commercial mortgage underwriting event that is happening this coming Friday. Check out the registration link here:

http://three-shades-of-green.com/

It's totally optional, but anyone in the Real Estate Capital Markets class is invited to register, whether you are a listener or regular student, and no matter what school or program you are in. The program is described in the registration link above. Obviously mortgage underwriting is very important in real estate investment, and this event will build on the relevant knowledge we've been teaching in the Cap Mkts course (as well as the Ventures course).