More than 700 members of Portland’s real estate and business communities came together to celebrate the first group of students to complete Portland State’s Master of Real Estate Development program.
PSU’s Center for Real Estate hosted its eighth annual real estate conference, titled “Real Estate Investments: Then and Now,” on Friday morning, and the graduates were recognized for their accomplishments. The conference was held in the lower ballroom of the Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront Hotel.
Some of the first 15 students to complete their MRED degree were at the conference, along with more than 50 sponsors of the Center for Real Estate.
“We value getting people together,” said the center’s executive director, Larry Remmers, in his opening remarks.
The room was filled with more than 80 tables and people talking, shaking hands and patting backs, so it took a moment for the conference to commence over the buzz.
The conference is hosted yearly, both to thank the community and bring together the many leaders in the real estate field, Remmers explained.
Speakers at the event included Blake Eagle, the recently retired CEO of the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries; Hessam Nadji, a managing director of research and advisory services for Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services; and Michael Gum, a student among the first cohort of graduates.
Gum encouraged companies to invest in themselves and their employees.
“Help employees get their master’s [degrees] in real estate development and advance their education,” Gum said.
Gum also insisted on the continued mentorship of PSU students by members of the Portland real estate community.
Also during the conference, a leadership award was bestowed on Mark Fisher by Scott Dawson, the dean of the PSU School of Business Administration. Fisher is the chairman of the Center for Real Estate’s Advisory Board as well an employee of the Standard Insurance Company.
“No other area’s success rests more on community in PSU than the Center for Real Estate,” Dawson said in his deliverance speech.
Following the presentation of the award were presentations by Eagle and Nadji.
Eagle discussed institutional investors and their impact on the marketplace.
An institutional investor, Eagle said, is a highly specialized investor that pools large sums of money from sources such as shareholders, contributors and donors on behalf of others. The capital is then spread across a broad range of opportunities, including debt and equity markets and the public and private markets.
Eagle also discussed real estate investment trusts, created by Congress in 1960 to allow all investors the opportunity to invest capital in diversified portfolios of income-producing real estate.
“An impact of such investors is the legitimization of real estate as an investment asset class,” he said. Eagle believes that in recent years, with the growth of REITs, the perception of real estate investment has changed. Rather than investments being perceived as deal-driven and tax-oriented, they are perceived as offering portfolio diversification and capital growth, Eagle explained.
The second presentation, by Nadji, discussed findings by the Marcus and Millichap Research Services about the current state of the real estate market.
While employment is still low, the economy is experiencing recovery—especially in the real estate market, Nadji said.
“The apartment market is fine, and the housing market, which was the culprit of the credit crash, is coming back,” Nadji said, adding that there was a 10 percent increase in home sales from 2012 to 2013.
“It’s not only a great time to sell, it’s a great time to buy,” Nadji said. “We have the strong footing [needed] to give us some assurance that the recovery is underway.”
To view complete slideshows of both presentations, visit pdx.edu/realestate-events.
The conference was organized by Julie Gibson, the assistant director of the Center for Real Estate.
The MRED degree, jointly offered by the School of Business Administration and the Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning, was officially offered for the first time in fall 2012.
There are still slots remaining for next year’s program, beginning in fall. There will be an information session about the MRED program on June 13. Contact the Center for Real Estate for more details at pdx.edu/realestate.