Real Estate (MSc)

Who is it for?

A Cass master's degree is your gateway to a real estate career. You may be a recent graduate with any previous degree, have a job in finance or real estate but wish to upgrade your skills and/or knowledge of real estate, or are intending a career switch from another industry.

Four key features make us market leaders in Real Estate Masters programmes:

• Track record: Established 20 years ago, and accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), our degrees are widely recognised and highly valued by major employers; you will find Cass Real Estate graduates at all levels in leading real estate firms around the world.
• Capability: You will be taught by highly qualified real estate staff, all with at least 10 years’ experience in teaching in senior roles in the industry – a lot of them with both. And we draw on London’s unmatched pool of industry professionals to act as visiting lecturers and guest speakers.
• Focus: Cass only offers Real Estate courses on a postgraduate level – so you have the exclusive attention of our staff - and has specialised in courses which blend the professional, financial and practical skills in high demand across the real estate industry.
• Location: We are the only Business School to offer real estate programmes in London, with the opportunity to network in a global real estate hub, neighbouring both the City’s financial core and the new tech belt centred on Silicon Roundabout.

Cass Real Estate courses:

• Equip you with the core skills required by the industry embracing valuation, financial modelling, development appraisal, market analysis and cash flow modelling.
• Are set in a framework of robust quantitative methods, financial and economic theory.
• Have an emphasis on up to date industry techniques and practical tools taught hands-on in computer labs.

Structure

The programme starts with two induction weeks, focused on:

• An introduction to the real estate industry and the careers it offers, including a dedicated real estate careers day with briefings form the RICS and a range of employers and a Careers Fair with over 20 leading firms.
• Foundation courses in the principles of finance, financial mathematics and quantitative methods to introduce the key concepts and methods you will use through the year.

In our first term, you get the portfolio of core real estate professional skills – taking in quantitative methods, valuation and investment appraisal methods, asset management and understanding real estate markets.

In the second term, module choices provide two learning “pathways”.

If you aim to join the graduate entry programme of the major UK real estate employers and take the RICS Assessment of Professional Competence you can pick modules that tilt toward UK-specific topics in law, tax and applied valuation. If you aim to work in fund management, finance or outside the UK, you can tilt toward advance financial modelling and international markets. Either way, your choice will not pre-determine the jobs available to you.

Assessment methods

All core modules in Term 1 and Term 2 are assessed by sight-unseen examinations (in January and April) plus coursework set and delivered in Term time. Elective modules are assessed by coursework only.

Your coursework will take a range of forms - essays, modelling projects, presentations, class tests. Some are done individually, others in self-selected or allocated groups of up to four. The mix of assignments is designed to develop the general and soft skills employers expect – time management, team working, report production and presentations.

Overall your final masters mark will be assessed on 50% exams and 50% coursework.

Career pathways

The largest proportion of our students go on to the graduate entry schemes of major firms of chartered surveyors in the UK, going through the RICS Assessment of Professional Competence to become qualified professionals.

The others go into a very wide range of employers and roles – with smaller niche agencies, fund managers, developers, investment banks, lending banks, public agencies, rating agencies, research companies, not to mention setting up their own businesses. Many will go on to professional qualifications outside real estate, such as Chartered Financial Analyst Institute.

Around half our students come from outside the UK, many of them take up jobs in other countries with the boost that a degree from Cass, accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, is a widely recognised and highly valued qualification world-wide. And they will generally find Cass real estate alumni already there to form the base of their professional network.

Visit the Real Estate (MSc) page on the Cass Business School website for more details!