Leeds students win first place in Colorado real estate competition

A team of Leeds undergraduate real estate students competed and won last Friday’s third annual Sherman Miller Real Estate Competition hosted by the University of Denver. The event, named after the late Sherman Miller, Executive Director of the CU Real Estate Center, pitted teams of undergraduate teams from University of Colorado (CU), Colorado State University (CSU), and University of Denver (DU) in a battle for real estate student bragging rights and a first place cash prize of $1,500. With the win on Friday, CU has won the competition two of the three years that the event has been hosted. At this year’s competition, DU placed a very close second, with CSU placing third.

During the competition, students analyzed a neighborhood shopping center investment opportunity in just five days. The teams presented and defended their analyses and recommendations, including market and site research, pricing, capital sources and uses, tenant leasing strategies, holding period and disposition of the investment to a panel of nine experienced industry professionals. The five seniors on CU's winning team were Anthony Levy, Lucas Michieli, William Haass, Chris Tryba and Nick Pepper.

CU Real Estate Council members, faculty across the school, and former students helped the CU team prepare by providing coaching on analytics, public speaking and presentation skills. "Nothing better prepares our students for their real estate careers than the opportunity to pull everything they're learning in the classroom together in a real-life context with industry professionals sharing their passion, knowledge and advice with the students in the process," said Curtis Sears, a Leeds faculty member who volunteered his time to work with the students. Students also received coaching from alumni and industry partners, including: Mary Sullivan, Dalton Skach, Megan Turner, Leslie DeHaas, Brian Monahan, Josh Siegel, Bill Mark, Jeff Robinson, Paul Kluck, Leon McBroom, Ben Woolf, Danny Goldman, Peter Aweida, and Greg Fair.

CU is sending a second team of CU undergrad real estate students to New York City for another competition—The Cornell International Real Estate Case Competition. This is the first time CU is competing in the Cornell competition, known as one of the largest undergraduate real estate competitions with over twenty teams entered from not only the U.S., but also from Europe and Asia.

Congratulations to the CU students for bringing the Sherman Miller Real Estate Competition trophy back to CU, and best of luck to team headed to NYC for the Cornell competition next week!