Our MS in Real Estate student was selected to attend the Fall 2017 meeting hosted by the Urban Land Institute (ULI), an annual national conference attended by over 6,000 real estate professionals. Here she reports her experience of the 3-day meeting.
I am honored to have been selected as one of the students at Baruch College attending ULI (Urban Land Institute) fall meeting in Los Angles this October.
The ULI Fall Meeting brought together more than 6,000 leaders from every sector of the real estate industry. During the 3-day meeting, I met developers, investors, architects, planners, brokers, academics, attorneys, decision makers, and public officials. I was so impressed how this multidisciplinary real estate forum provided the attendees with an open exchange of ideas, information, and experience.
I was under the impression that downtown L.A. was dangerous. Though I’ve visited L.A. many times, I had been told to stay away from the downtown area as my friends always described that area as scary. It was not until I arrived at my hotel downtown that I realized that the revitalization projects in downtown L.A. did make a difference to this avoid-after-dark neighborhood. A walking tour of downtown’s retail offerings was provided during the ULI meeting, led by Avison Young’s Derrick Moore, who has brokered about 400 DTLA retail leasing deals in the past few years. This tour was quite insightful, as I learned that most of retail leasing in downtown L.A. area is driven by hotel and mixed-use development around the convention center, and surprisingly, these projects are mostly financed by foreign capital. Los Angeles has even set a goal that an additional 8,000 new hotel rooms would be built within walking distance of the convention center. No wonder that, as I walked to the convention center from the hotel I stayed in, I saw all those construction projects on every block.
On the second day of the meeting, I was non-stop attending the sessions related to real estate capital markets, as I plan to use my education to break into real estate finance industry after graduation. The session of How to Find Debt and Equity for $20 Million to $50 Million Projects addressed the capital needs of developers and investors who focus on projects with smaller total capitalization. This session went far beyond my expectations. I was not so aware of the smaller deals and had never thought they could be as profitable as larger deals. One of the panelists – Karen Case from CIBC – said she would never eliminate a category of deals – as there are always bad deals in good markets and good deals in bad markets. What she said enlightened me about the current retail industry. Though people regard retail as the industry of yesterday and won’t touch it, at the end of the day investors should still analyze case by case. Just like another session I attended – What’s New, What’s Next in the Capital Markets, which was an interactive session with the audience in which the panelists discussed recently structured deals and headwinds in the current global capital marketplace. I believe a lot of audience holds the same opinion as I do – retail might be down now but it will come back eventually.
I really enjoyed the 3-day meeting and couldn’t believe the event had already reached its last day. What I found most intriguing during the last day was PWC’s (PriceWaterhouseCooper) release of their 2018 edition of Emerging Trends in Real Estate with ULI, which they updated every ULI Fall Meeting. I arrived 15 minutes ahead and yet I could only sit in the back rows, as everyone was eager to hear about the insights into the real estate industry next year. Unsurprisingly, Seattle was named the nation’s top market for investment and development in the coming year of 2018, as the headquarters of Amazon and many other Fortune 500 companies provide the city with job opportunities, a diverse economy, and an educated workforce. But to my great surprise, New York was ranked only 40th, as most investors regard the city as too expensive to invest in.
Another great session I attended was the Asia-Pacific Capital Still Major Force in U.S. Real Estate Despite China’s Pullback event. I related to this most, as I am an international student from China. Marc Renard of global firm Cushman & Wakefield gave a speech about how important it is for any participant in the U.S. real estate market to understand and interact with capital from the Asia-Pacific region. He mentioned that China leads the way with 19.5% of the total spend of the foreign nations investing in U.S. real estate, though it will likely decline by 15 percent this year due to new Chinese government restrictions on overseas direct investment. I’ve always know that foreign investors, especially Chinese investors, have been quite active in the U.S. markets, but it never occurred to me before that it could be quite a great opportunity for an international student like myself who is bilingual in Chinese and English.
The tremendous networking opportunities provided by ULI fall meeting were also amazing, but the work that ULI put into emphasizing women and young leaders was even more commendable. Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) invited me to attend a different kind of networking – and a uniquely LA experience – by joining a small group of other ULI women leaders for dinner at a local restaurant. It was much more than just sharing a meal; it was a conversation with other ULI members from across the country in a more intimate setting. I enjoyed the food as much as the stories the women leaders shared, which were encouraging and inspiring. Of course the YLG (Young Leaders Group) reception I went was also a great experience. The reception was held in an open air penthouse located 21 floors above the streets of downtown LA with amazing panoramic views of the city. I really enjoyed meeting with young fellows in the industry and sharing our experience of the ULI meeting.
The information provided by ULI is advanced, and the Institute is a place where students like myself come to grow professionally and personally through sharing, mentoring, and problem solving. Without a doubt, I benefited greatly from being a witness of this great conference. This amazing experience at ULI fall meeting was indeed eye-opening and beyond my expectations, and affirmed my pursuit of a challenging career in commercial real estate.
Shuo Wang, MS in Real Estate
