Center for Real Estate director named 'most influential researcher'

David Geltner, director of the MIT Center for Real Estate, has been named the most influential researcher in the real estate field from 2000 to 2004, an honor that reflects his long-term productivity investigating topics of interest to the real estate community. 

The study, based on the number of times an author's work was referenced by others, was published in the Fall 2006 issue of Real Estate Economics (REE), recognized as the leading journal in the real estate field. 

The REE study also ranked MIT as the second most influential research institution in the field, based on the number of citations referencing its researchers. The University of California at Berkeley was ranked first.

The center's previous director, current real estate economics professor William Wheaton, was ranked the sixth most influential researcher among hundreds of authors tracked in the study.

The publication of the study coincides with the second edition of Geltner's "Commercial Real Estate Analysis and Investments," co-authored with Norman G. Miller, Jim Clayton and Piet Eichholtz (Thomson South-Western, 2007). 

The first edition, published in 2001, is recognized as the authoritative resource on commercial real estate analysis and investment. It is the first textbook aimed explicitly at the graduate level, and it has pioneered the teaching of a rigorous economics-based framework for analyzing and understanding real estate investment, featuring a groundbreaking integration of urban and financial economics.

The 2006 edition of Geltner and Miller's text presents the essential concepts, principles and tools for the analysis of commercial real estate from an investment perspective. It has particularly expanded its treatment of the valuation and analysis of land and real estate development projects, those aspects of real estate investment analysis that most directly impact the physical environment.

The 850-page book includes a student version of ARGUS®, a Windows-based program used throughout the industry to solve complex investment and valuation problems, and a student version of Crystal Ball®, professional-grade software used to perform risk analysis on commercial investments.

Geltner and Miller are also the authors of "Real Estate Principles for the New Economy" (Thomson South-Western, February 2004), exploring the possibilities brought about by the revolution in information technology and featuring a supplemental CD providing professional-grade spreadsheets and tools.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on February 7, 2007 (download PDF).