The Future of Real Estate 2024: REIT Challenge - "You're the CEO", is a competition designed to support student exploration of innovative solutions to the challenges facing the REIT real estate industry.  In teams, students will be challenged to research the REIT real estate industry, discern the challenges facing a particular publicly traded REIT, and provide innovative solutions to improve the company.  

The Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT)  industry is one of the largest ownership groups of real estate. More specifically, the REIT industry owns, operates and finances over 4 trillion dollars worth of real estate, with public REITs (those traded on a stock exchange) owning about 2.5 trillion in assets. The balance of the REIT ownership is in private REITs. 

The REIT industry provides the opportunity for everyday Americans to invest in real estate through direct securities investments, 401K plans, pension plans and other investment and retirement funds. 

For those studying real estate, the REIT industry provides numerous job opportunities for rewarding careers, both professionally and financially which we will discuss in our introduction to the case competition.

Leaders in the REIT industry have created tremendous shareholder value for their investors. Now it’s your turn to compete for a grand prize of $10,000 (with prizes totaling $30,000) and solve some REIT issues like a CEO!

The sections across the top of this site will help you understand the case, deliverables, judging criteria, rules, and how to access our community of industry advisors.