2007 National Real Estate Challenge Rules
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screen should be checked frequently for changes and updates. Last Updated: 10/16/2007
1. The National Real Estate Challenge is being held on Friday, November 2nd, 2007, with a kick-off dinner and reception on the preceding Thursday night in Austin, Texas.
2. Each school may enter only ONE team of at least four members and no more than six members. Team members must be currently enrolled graduate students at your school. You may compose this year’s team of your best mixture of first and second-year students. Beyond the educational component of this event, the primary purpose of the Challenge is to showcase the talent of students who will be graduating this academic year and on the job market, but is open to a small number of internship candidates. Also, take note that the first place champion of the previous year's Challenge will NOT be allowed to put a repeat team member on their next team. The first place school must compose the next year's team of all new participating students. Please note that in all likelihood we will be expanding the "no repeat team members" rule to a broader group next year, consisting at a minimum of those schools which placed in the Finals Round (1st through 4th place) the prior year. Please note that we are contemplating widening the "no repeat participant" rule to all of the schools in future years (or maybe limiting any school to just one repeat) to broaden participation and judge the depth of each program, but would very much welcome your feedback before effecting any change.
The actual members of the Team may not change after Friday, 2 weeks prior to the Challenge event. Team members may be removed after this date, so long as the minimum number of 4 is present for the competition, but new members may not be added.
3. The Case will be distributed at 9:00 a.m. (CST) via email to each team on the Tuesday prior to competition day. To allow time for dissemination to all team members and to provide every team roughly the same amount of time to work on the case given the travel distances involved, the Texas-McCombs team will not receive the case until 3:00 PM (CST) on that same Tuesday. Any clarifying questions related to the case will be answered within the first dissemination day via email – guidelines will be provided.
4. Each team should have a faculty advisor. Faculty advisors are invited to attend the competition in Austin if they wish. The role of the faculty advisor is two-fold:
a. to formally acknowledge and approve of the team's participation in this competition on behalf of the university and to confirm that all team members are currently enrolled as graduate students at the specified school; and
b. to provide advice and guidance to the student team in preparation prior to receipt of the case (but not during the case analysis or competition). Please note that the faculty advisor is not allowed to discuss the actual details and merits of the case with the team, nor should they provide or facilitate outside assistance to the team from others. Advisors should not be providing any coaching to the team on the case details, team assumptions, case-specific data in the team's presentation, etc., once the case has been distributed. The desire of the challenge, understandably so, is to judge how the team (and not its faculty, alumni or friends) has approached the questions and issues involved.
5. Once the case is distributed, outside assistance is NOT acceptable. Teams cannot discuss any details of the case with anyone who is not a team member. Faculty, students, alumni, family members, peers, or industry professionals are NOT allowed to advise the team members on the case. Assistance on verbal and visual presentation skills ONLY is acceptable. As indicated above, the desire of the challenge is to judge how the team (and not its faculty, alumni or friends) has approached the questions and issues involved. Teams may access any public research data available to them via the internet or other electronic means only. Invariably, some students will try and find out which actual asset the case is about and then contact principals and agents associated with the transaction to gain an advantage. Not only is this behavior prohibited but is easy to discover (the real estate community is a small world) and may very likely result in the team being disqualified from this and future competitions.
Many of you may have prior work experience with Goldman Sachs and/or the particular deal partner on this year's case. Once the case is distributed, if you recognize the particulars of the real deal or project (despite Goldman's best efforts to disguise) and would provide an unfair advantage to your team from that knowledge, we fully expect that you will recuse yourself from your team, communicate this conflict to the UT host, and refrain from passing on that inside knowledge to your fellow team members. This "honor code" helps insure the integrity of this competition and of your team.
6. Questions that arise after the case has been distributed should be submitted by email to Angela Dorsey at UT (angela.dorsey@mccombs.utexas.edu) and will only be answered via email to all teams IF the judges deem the answer as being critical to a team's ability to solve the case AND the case does not contain enough information for the team to solve the issue themselves. When in doubt, make an assumption, state it, and move on with your presentation.
7. Each team should select a team name which provides no reference to their school, mascots, etc. No logos or any other school references are to be included on the team’s presentation materials. This includes PowerPoint presentations, slides, posters, clothing and documents. No verbal references of school affiliation are to be made to the Judges during a team’s presentation.
8. It’s important to note that the purpose of the challenge is not only educational but is also meant to provide students and industry professionals the opportunity to network with each other, with several judges selected not only on their expertise but also due to their firm’s historical active recruiting of real estate MBAs. As a result, an Icebreaker reception is being hosted with judges and select members of the UT Real Estate Center’s advisory board on Thursday night, November 1, 2007. All students and judges will each be provided with resume books that evening outlining all of the participants to better help everyone identify each other and facilitate follow up interaction.
9. To ensure good representation at the reception, we are requiring that the final case be submitted in person no later than 6:00 p.m. (CST) on Thursday evening by at least one representative from each team so that students can enjoy the dinner without the pressure of needing to complete last minute alterations to the presentation. Materials to be turned in should include eight (8) black & white paper copies of the presentation and a USB flash drive/memory stick (pc-compatible), labeled with the team name, with your presentation stored on it. Each presentation must be in the MS PowerPoint slide format, and we recommend that each team should come prepared with a "plan B" format (e.g. overhead transparencies) to be used only in the event of computer failure (and not as a method of submitting last minute presentation alterations). It is wise for each team to turn in your presentation materials all together in a box or bag labeled with your team name so that we are certain that no presentation material gets lost or mixed with another. On Friday morning, room assignments, times and team presentation order will be determined by random draw. The first presentation will begin circa 8:45 AM (CST). Each room will contain a laptop with Microsoft PowerPoint, and the designated Room Host will have your presentation loaded on the laptop and ready to run at the start of your presentation. If you would like to view the presentation rooms, you may do so at anytime Thursday after dinner or Friday morning prior to 8:30 am. The classrooms will be open Thursday until 10:00pm and Friday morning at 7:30am.
10. Each presentation will be strictly limited to 20 minutes in length followed by 5-10 minutes of questions. If teams complete their presentation in under 20 minutes, then the extra minutes will be added to the Judge’s Q&A time, for a total time of 30 minutes with the judges allowed for each team. These guidelines will be administered closely. Students must compete in their original teams. We would strongly encourage every team member to participate with a speaking part in the presentation to the judges; the lack of full participation will be noted by the judges.
11. Business dress is required on presentation day (Friday). Business casual is requested at the Icebreaker Dinner on Thursday night prior to the competition.
12. Teams will not be allowed to attend the other presentations during the preliminary round; however, all participants may attend the finals round presentations except those finalists who still have to present.
13. All travel expenses including hotel, airline, and ground transportation are the sole responsibility of each team and/or sponsoring school, with the exception of any shuttle service provided by UT for specific Challenge events.
14. There will be a final round of four presentations between the top teams from each of the four flights in the preliminaries. The decision of the judges is final. Cash awards to the winning teams will be distributed via U.S. Mail after the competition to the team members. Cash awards are considered taxable income.
15. At the conclusion of the final round of presentations, all students, judges and faculty are invited to attend the Challenge Awards Ceremony, where the winning teams and prizes will be announced. The Awards Ceremony is open to all Real Estate Challenge participants, guests, family and faculty, which will include a presentation from the Goldman Sachs professionals that actually prepared the case. Informal feedback on presentations will also be available from the judges.
16. Failure to comply with these regulations may result in team penalties or disqualification from this and future competitions.
Hotel Rooms - Teams are
responsible for payment of their hotel accommodations. For your
convenience, we have reserved a block of guest rooms at the Radisson Hotel &
Suites
in downtown Austin for a discounted rate of $125 per night, double occupancy.
You must call by October 1st, to submit your credit card information in
order to confirm your room reservation.
** All travel and hotel expenses are those of each
team/school.
Radisson,
1-800-333-3333. Reference the “Real Estate Challenge” event for discount rate of $139
double occupancy, per room per night.
For your budgeting preparations, please consider
these potential expenses for your team:
Airfare: Roundtrip to
Hotel: $125 per night, double occupancy, plus taxes
Parking: Hotel - $10-15 per day; UT Campus – free, with validation stamp provided
by host.
Ground transportation
(Taxi or rental car): Between the airport and
hotel, and any sightseeing travel. Shuttle service will be provided to teams
between hotel and museum on Thursday as well as between hotel and campus on
Friday.
Meals: Any meals outside of the Challenge. Food & beverage will be
provided to during all Challenge events beginning Thursday at dinner, except
the Closing reception on Friday which will be drinks only.
In
addition to the team registration form, every participant in the National Real Estate Challenge is
required to submit a
resume, which will be included in the competition’s
Resume Book given to corporate sponsors, accredited real estate professionals,
and faculty. The judging
panel has requested that students include a headshot photo page of your
team members for the book. Resumes must be emailed to
Angela Dorsey
at
3-4 weeks in advance of the Challenge event to be
included in the Challenge Resume Book. Microsoft
Word documents are preferred to all
other formats.
