UTA Student Society of Real Estate revived to increase learning opportunities for students

This is an article By Angelica Perez, The Shorthorn staff, Nov 20, 2019, available at https://m.theshorthorn.com/news/uta-student-society-of-real-estate-revived-to-to-increase/article_a89b3cc6-07de-11ea-8186-8f7f8d88cdc7.html

Franziska Schroeder and Kanti Shetty saw a need to network before graduating from UTA, so they decided to revive the Student Society of Real Estate organization in the 2019 spring semester.

According to the MavOrgs website, the Student Society of Real Estate, “is a student organization that seeks to develop an enhanced understanding of the commercial real estate profession.” This is its first semester as an official club since its revival, and it has 53 active members.

Shetty, the organization’s vice president and real estate graduate student, said the vision is to encourage students to learn about real estate, including how to be a successful appraiser, working in commercial real estate and becoming a loan underwriter. The organization also hopes to host a job fair where students have the opportunity to network with companies and ask about internships and job openings.

Prior to being official, Schroeder, the organization’s president and real estate graduate student, and Shetty created a speaker series for the organization. The guest speakers discuss things such as real estate development and property management.

Through the workshops and guest speakers, Shetty said students can learn more about the different platforms where they can earn better salaries since commercial real estate business also involves finance.

So far this semester, they have brought four speakers to campus including Grand Prairie Mayor Ron Jensen. There is one more speaker planned for the semester. Jensen came to UTA on Nov. 12 and discussed the city of Grand Prairie’s development growth.

Faculty adviser Andrew Hansz said a lot about real estate is networking and the organization brings that to students.

“Not many schools have real estate programs that major in a full graduate degree that specializes in real estate, but a great real estate program needs a great student club,” Hansz said. “That’s something that’s been missing in our real estate program for some time now.”

Hansz said since the program is under the College of Business, most students do not see the government side of real estate development.

He said it was fascinating for the mayor to discuss how developments are attracted to cities and approved, the development effects on cities and revenue base and what cities can do with money generated from property and sales taxes.

“A lot of our students are interested in real estate development and we have a lot of developers come in to speak to students, but this was very special because we got the top public official to talk about the government side of real estate development,” he said. Schroeder said the event, which was open to all majors, was to show students to get interested in what happens in their own backyard and not just in other cities.

“I personally believe that everyone has an impact on their own city and it always starts in your own house and that was what the mayor was really trying to share,” she said. Schroeder said construction management, architecture and urban planning majors have also attended the society’s events.

“In the end that all connects and we have to work together as a team when it comes to real estate,” Schroeder said.