Frequently Asked Questions

The deadline for submitting your completed business proposal is Wednesday, November 6th at 11:59PM EST.

A panel of judges will review each of your digital submissions, and five (5) finalists will be selected.  The judges will hear each finalist’s presentation on Tuesday, November 19th, and reconvene to select a winner based on the combined digital submission and presentation scores.  There are a total of 50 points that will be awarded for your digital submissions. The finalists will be determined by the highest score. The Weiser Center for Real Estate will provide a selection of the judge’s feedback to all participants after the case competition is completed.

1. Identifying your chosen REIT, its niche in the market and their strengths (up to 10 points)

2. Clearly identifying challenges/problems/opportunities the REIT has (up to 10 points)

3. Citations/sources for the above topics/issues (up to 10 points)

4. Specific solutions to dealing with their problems/challenges/opportunities (up to 10 points)

5. Action plan, implementation and feasibility of your solutions (up to 10 points)

• Consult the Kresge Library Research guide to learn more about available resources.
• If needed, the Tozzi Center at the Ross School of Business has access to CoStar for real estate market research.
• Nareit is the primary source to identify a publicly traded REIT (not private REIT) for your case study. They have a list of all publicly traded REITs.
• Review 10K, 10Qs (EDGAR/SEC.gov) and Annual Report of your chosen REIT
• Finviz.com
• You can use Yahoo Finance and/or any other industry reports that are available in the public domain.

This program is open to any undergraduate or graduate student attending the University of Michigan.

The Weiser Center for Real Estate will let you know if your submission has meet the baseline criteria and has been sent to the judges.

Yes – by November 22nd is when finalists will be picked, the Weiser Center will notify all finalists by 5:30PM EST.

At least one of your teammates will be required to deliver a 10-15 minute pitch presentation about your business idea.

Yes – students have until Wednesday, October 23rd to request support from the Weiser Center to help find teammates.  If you completed the interest form, you will also have access to a database of interested students whom you can reach out to directly.  For questions about finding teammates, email Colleen Triezenberg at cotrieze@umich.edu

• Teams may not exceed four current University of Michigan students.
• Teams can be a mixture of undergraduate and graduate students.

Contact our Student Affairs Program Manager, Colleen Triezenberg, at cotrieze@umich.edu

Please submit the published link to your Google Site using this form.  Ensure that your entry is publicly viewable.

Yes – we will review your materials and alert you to any missing information  if they are sent to us by Monday, November 4th by 9:00 AM EST

The Weiser Center reserves the right to recognize winning teams on our website, social media, and in other correspondence as needed.  You will be contacted by a member of our team in advance.