Welcome to the new M.J. Bowen Real Estate Development Program!
The Michael J. Bowen Real Estate Development Program was founded in 2006 with a gift from CMU alum Michael J. Bowen. This undergraduate major offered within The College of Business Administration (CBA) is the only program of its kind in the state of Michigan. We strongly believe that the CBA is the place where real estate education belongs. Just as with other CBA majors, our graduating students receive a BS of BA degree.
The purpose of the new program is to provide a broad integrated undergraduate education in real estate development and finance, encompassing the perspective of the private developer, as well as those of professionals in brokerage, design, engineering, land use, and environmental planning.
The Real Estate Development program is starting out with about 35 students each semester enrolled in the FIN 335 principles course. In the fall 2007 semester, we offered a course in real estate law (BLR 330) with about 35 students enrolled. In the spring 2008 semester, we are offering RE Finance & Investments (FIN 336) and RE valuation/appraisal (FIN 337), as well as the FIN 335 principles course.
For the first time, students graduating in the spring 2008 semester will be able to earn a minor in real estate development and finance by taking the four courses offered in 2007-8 as well as additional second year prerequisites in accounting, economics and finance. Our real estate minor was approved by the CMU Academic Senate in late October 2007.
For students working on the new real estate major, we are offering the real estate internship beginning the summer of 2008. In 2008-9, we will be adding an economics course on cities and regions (ECO 375) as well as the "capstone" case studies course in real estate development (FIN 438).
At our Oct. 11, 2007 real estate mini-conference, our fledgling program received strong affirmation from many of our professional real estate attendees. And we are obviously, as Dean Fields remarked at the conference, in the "infancy" of our new program. We need to continue to work on the "block and tackle" elements of the program: recruiting new students and marketing the program to the real estate community.
