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Wharton News New Real Estate Faculty
This July, we will welcome a new faculty member, Maisy Wong, who will receive her Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this summer. She will teach our basic real estate finance course in the Spring term next year. Ms. Wong brings a welcome global perspective to our research environment, as she is a native of Malaysia and her research interests are international in scope. Penn Real Estate Students Win ULI Hines Urban Design CompetitionTwo PennDesign teams presented their work in the finals of the ULI Hines Urban Design Competition in April, along with teams from the University of Michigan and the University of Texas. The competition was intense, but the Penn teams stood well above their counterparts from the other universities. The PennDesign team that won first prize included Shachi Pandey, City Planning; Wang Wei, Architecture; Tiffany Marson, Landscape Architecture; Yunjia Wang, Landscape Architecture; and David Anderson, from Wharton. The jury was greatly impressed by the winning team's outstanding plan for the area of Dallas they were designing. The other finalist team from PennDesign, who also had an excellent scheme, included Maritza Mercado, City Planning; Carrie Bergey, Architecture; Hernaldo Flores, Architecture; Christina Lindsey, City Planning; and Douglas Meehan, Landscape Architecture and City Planning. A third PennDesign team received honorable mention: Zev Moses, City Planning; Joey Hoepp, Architecture; Alex Feldman, Architecture; Andrea Hansen, Landscape Architecture; and James Bennett, Landscape Architecture. Nakahara Hosts End of Year BBQ
Associate Center Director Asuka Nakahara and his wife Karen hosted a casual and informal cook-out at their magnificent home in Merion, Pa. on Saturday, May 3. More than 100 current students, alumni, faculty and their families enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with old friends. Assessing Efficacy of Housing Regulations
Anita Summers was a guest on the Dom Giordano Talk Show on WPHT Radio on Saturday, May 3, speaking on “Merit Pay for Teachers.” Her article, “State Executive/Legislative and Judicial Activities and the Strength of Local Regulation of Residential Housing,” written with David D. Foster, was published in The Urban Lawyer (Winter 2008, 40:1). How Affordable can Affordable Housing Really Be?
The research of Wharton real estate professors Joseph Gyourko (image right, top) and Albert Saiz (image right, bottom) was cited in “The high cost of affordable housing,” in the Boston Globe (5/7). The article noted “affordable” housing costs $200,000 per unit to build in the greater Boston area, with prices about to go dramatically higher. “Construction costs in Greater Boston are 15 percent higher than the average for the nation's 55 largest metropolitan areas and more than 40 percent higher than the cheapest areas . . .” according to Joseph Gyourko and Albert Saiz. While reporting that the Boston area has the third highest construction costs in the country, the writer noted, “Gyourko and Saiz found that a few factors explain the bulk of the differences. Most notably, costs are about 11 percent higher in areas where about a third of construction workers were unionized . . . than in areas [where] unionization is much less common . . . . Construction costs are also noticeably higher in places with high average wages and in places with varied terrain—two attributes that also characterize this region.” International Housing Finance Program The Global Perspective on Housing Policies
Drs. Marja Hoek-Smit's International Housing Finance Program's annual Housing Finance Program for Emerging Market Economies will be June 2 to June 12, with a Workshop on Securitization June 13-14. This year's courses pay special attention to the turmoil in credit markets and implications and lessons for emerging markets. The courses are fully booked with senior public and private housing finance officials from 26 countries. Countries in the process of reorganizing their housing finance systems, such as Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mongolia are sending officials in charge of the restructuring. Drs. Marja Hoek-Smit was invited to participate in an April seminar on “Growth Strategies and Urbanization” sponsored by the Commission on Growth and Development and The World Bank. The seminar, held in Washington, D.C., was chaired by Nobel Laureate Mike Spence, the Chairman of the Commission on Growth and Development. She participated in a World Bank mission to Colombia in April to work on new housing policies with the Government of Colombia. In March, Drs. Hoek-Smit traveled to Egypt to meet with the Minister of Housing and the Minister of Investment and their senior advisors to discuss innovations in the mortgage sector and related subsidy programs. Rybczynski: Author and Guest Speaker
Witold Rybczynski, Martin & Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism, School of Design and Professor at the Wharton School, gave a talk to the Southern California chapter of Classical America/Institute for Classical Architecture in Los Angeles, and to the Penn alumni of Cleveland, on Vizcaya, a Gilded Age house in Miami, the subject of a recent book. Prof. Rybczynski was invited to deliver the annual Mary Tefft White Lecture at Roger Williams University in Bristol, R.I. and lectured at the Palladium Musicum in Greenwich, Conn. on Andrea Palladio's villas. In May, he delivered the Charles Atherton Memorial Lecture at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., on the controversial subject of the national capital's building height limit—to keep it, or not? (He came down firmly on the “keep it” side.) Rybczynski's recent book, Last Harvest: From Cornfield to New Town, which Planetizen.com called one of the ten best planning books of 2008, has recently been published in paperback. Linneman Delivers Ashland University Commencement Address
Real estate professor Peter Linneman delivered the commencement address at Ohio's Ashland University on May 12. Linneman, a 1973 Ashland alumnus, challenged the graduates in a speech titled “Education Offers the Keys to a Richer Life.” “While university offers the keys to a great life,” advised Linneman, “only you can grasp and use the keys.” In May, Linneman was the guest speaker at the Stockbridge Annual Investor Meeting in San Francisco; and at the ICSC RECON—Global Retail Real Estate Convention, “When and How the Bad News Will End,” in Las Vegas. In April, he joined Sam Zell at the Metropolitan Club in New York for “A Conversation Between the Practitioner and the Theorist.” He was the keynote speaker at the Citi Private Bank: 2008 Real Estate Dialogues on “World Economy: Recession Bound?” and was the guest speaker at NATIXIS—2008 Real Estate Finance Conference in Pebble Beach. Nakahara Wins Teaching AwardAsuka Nakahara received the Class of 1984 Award, accorded to the Wharton professor with the highest student teaching ratings. Nakahara and Peter Linneman taught classes in real estate development and investments and entrepreneurship in Wharton's NFL program this spring. Professors in the Media
In March, Susan Wachter, Richard B. Worley Professor of Financial Management and professor of Real Estate, Finance and City and Regional Planning (image right, top), appeared on ABC's “World News” to discuss the Bear Stearns bail-out. Todd Sinai, associate professor of Real Estate (image right, bottom), was quoted in a story in the International Herald Tribune about home mortgage default.
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