COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA283.1

This course is dual-listed with the Full-time MBA Program.

COURSE TITLE: Real Estate Finance and Securitization

UNITS OF CREDIT: 3 units

INSTRUCTOR: Christopher Palmer

E-MAIL ADDRESS: cjpalmer at berkeley dot edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION: bCourses

PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA203 Intro to Finance

CAREER FIELD: This course is useful to anyone going into finance or real estate or whose responsibilities may include making decisions about debt financing. It is also relevant to anyone wanting to learn the economics and finance behind The Big Short.

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
This applied finance and economics course focuses on understanding and navigating mortgage and asset-backed securities markets—both how debt is used to finance real estate and the economics behind The Big Short.

It has historically had success at placing students at finance and real-estate firms, but more broadly draws students from diverse career paths who anticipate facing decisions about debt financing and/or hedging risk using financial instruments.

Much of our material will be directly applicable to understanding the Great Recession and the causes and consequences of Federal Reserve monetary policy—important concepts for any industry. After overviewing the fundamentals of bond math and mortgage contracts, we analyze ways mortgages are used in residential and commercial real estate to manage risk. Through a set of case studies, we learn how these concepts have been pivotal in real-world situations, including a proposal to use securitization to cure cancer. We will also review recent advances in finance to price mortgages and contracts with embedded real options such as prepayment, default, extension, and cancellation. A final project gives students an impressive way to showcase their skills when they describe their coursework in job interviews.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
Christopher Palmer is an Assistant Professor of Real Estate at the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, where he teaches courses on real estate finance and is a Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellow. Professor Palmer is also a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, a Faculty Associate at the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, and a small business mentor for the best tailor shop in LA. His current research focuses on how real estate and debt markets respond to periods of significant upheaval, such as dramatic price fluctuations, regulatory changes, gentrification, and tax policy changes. He is also an accomplished econometrician, advancing empirical techniques to deal with statistical inference and the estimation of causal relationships. He frequently speaks to the media, government agencies, and industry groups about emerging trends in real estate. Professor Palmer earned a PhD in Economics from MIT, where he was a Visiting Fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, a Humane Studies Fellow, and a C. Lowell Harriss Fellow at the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy. Prior to his time at MIT, he consulted with Compass-Lexecon, an economics consulting firm. He received a BA in Economics and Mathematics from Brigham Young University.