Real Estate Management

Real estate management is the ongoing process of aligning the built environment and the needs of users. This alignment happens at all scales of the built environment, for all types of users, and for all real estate aspects such as location, cost, function, time and quality. Real estate management is a particular type of portfolio or asset management and addresses operating the portfolio and assets as well as adapting and producing them. This course studies real estate management from a systemic point of view and focuses mainly on the strategic management level.

The course first introduces the basics of real estate management through an overview of the past, current and future real estate delivery models and their potential to fulfil user needs and meet the socio-economic and ecological challenges. The studied models range from self-provision to acquisition via cooperation, markets and state initiatives. The models are situated within the main management, social, economic and organisational theories. The course then zooms in on how two particular types of users, namely organisations and households, are currently provided with the real estate they need.

Parallel to this theory immersion, students engage in a project assignment wherein they first assess the performance of the current real estate provision to organisations or households and thereafter develop a strategy to improve this provision in the future.

The first type of users that is studied in detail ranges from small to large organisations across all industries and services, and from the private to the public sector. The management of real estate for organisations is called corporate real estate (CRE) management. CRE managers provide the built assets that organisations use to house their business. They aim to maximise their organisation's stakeholder and shareholder value. CRE management should be distinguished from the approach of a real estate investor or developer. The CRE manager's key performance indicators of the are the safety, reliability, suitability, sufficiency and efficiency of the accommodation provided, not financial return. This course studies how CRE strategies and operations respond to organisational expectations and how they can continue to do so in the future.

The second type of users that is studied in detail are households. These range from individuals to families, communities and organised groups, from the low- and middle-income to the high-income, at the local, the national and global levels. The real estate management that addresses households is commonly called Housing management. Acquiring the right home is a crucial aspect of a household's aspirations, albeit not simply a matter of individual choice as the housing market is an imperfect market. Especially in larger cities housing production and pricing mechanisms limit the possibilities of (groups of) users to attain their goals and hinder social cohesion and urban competitiveness. Consequently, the delivery of housing in developed economies became highly institutionalised, and different types of government interventions were introduced. Housing managers need to improve the environmental sustainability of the housing stock, which constitutes the largest investment challenge in the built environment. New housing delivery models are emerging to better realise the right to housing for all in the future.