A last word from each of us

During my short time on campus on Friday, it was great to hear people congratulating the team on our achievement.

This has been a priceless experience. I recall sitting on the famous red steps at Times Square and thinking to myself how thankful I am for the opportunity. Even though we did not come first, I am proud of myself and I am proud of our team. We all played an integral part in our success. During our celebration, a student from an American University stated our attitude and approach to the competition was “refreshing”. This meant a lot to us as it establishes we conducted ourselves and represented the University well. The result has confirmed the University’s status as a world renowned Real Estate program and I am proud to study here. 

The obvious highlight for me was our successful participation. I did not think we would get through to the final never mind coming fourth. It was encouraging that some judges came and congratulated us personally which underlined our performance. I also got to share the experience with my good friend Hannah. We have progressed through our University careers together and I am thankful we were both selected.

I would highly recommend current 3rd year students apply for this trip next year. - Amy

To me, this New York trip has been an experience I will never forget. There has been so many great times, although my highlights are three specific times. First, upon the arrival to the City Centre and seeing the Empire State Building all lit up. It was not until then I kind of understood that "this is real!" Secondly, the whole case itself was very rewarding. The biggest highlight was the actual competition day and of course part of it was when we were announced the group winners. That was an amazing feeling, although the main highlight for me was just to be in The Convene and experience true Wall Street atmosphere and professional working environment. I have been able to learn so much more than I ever expected to learn beforehand. And lastly, the Staten Island ferry trip where I could see the whole Manhattan Skyline from afar and see the beautiful Statue of Liberty monument. That was a great wrap-up to a wonderful journey for me. - Maria 

This trip was an unbelievable experience! I had never been to New York before, so experiencing the culture and having time for some sightseeing was great! Not to mention that we were there over Halloween...!! The highlight, however, was when the finalists were announced  and they said MaitlandGroup. I think after this moment everyone in the room knew who we were because of our screaming and excitement! This showed that all our hard work had paid off - and that it was fine to take some time off to see the Big Apple. - Alina 

For me New York was a dream destination and I would like to thank the University for making this dream come true. It was an incredible experience from which I have learned a lot.  

The biggest highlight came to me unexpectedly in the middle of our final presentation. There, for the moment, I stopped and realised that in front of us sat 19 judges that represent the Real Estate industry. Leaders that are making decisions and shaping the industry. And they are judging us- young students with no real life experience on the investment transaction they, as a fund, should take. Therefore, the fact that we were really close to actual transaction and judges congratulations, statements that we did a great job, as well as the advice they gave us is one of the most valuable things that happened.

Of course, New York itself. Skyscrapers, yellow cabs, diners, food stands and bright lights of the city that never sleeps. It is like you are in a movie and experiencing the culture every day. 9/11 Memorial is a must see. Very emotional and tragic. - Vitali 

Having never been 'State-side' before this trip was a very exciting opportunity for me and I feel truly priveledged to have been selected. Seeing the bright lights of the big city for the first time as we drove in from the airport filled me with excitement & anticipation of all that would follow over the coming week. The case study was tough but as I stood on top of the Empire State Building on our last morning reflecting on the past week and all that had happened I thought about how much I had learnt- about myself and academically- and realised just how fabulous this experience had been. 

Distinct highlights are hard to select as for me so much was fun, exciting and new experiences. I loved walking around and soaking up the atmosphere of such a diverse, vibrant city. Furthermore, I am immensely proud to have been part of a team who have each personally achieved so much as well as together. 

Thank you again to the university for facilitating our trip and to Professor Hutchison for taking the time to accompany us and for all his support along the way! Thank you also to all who have followed our blog and progress on social media- we have greatly appreciated your support and words of encouragement along the way plus messages of congratulations at the end! - Hannah 

Almost home!

Arrived safely back in London, just had breakfast before our flight back to Aberdeen shortly! We all slept most of the flight back- several late nights seem to have caught up with us all! - Hannah

The University of Aberdeen comes 4th!!

With great pleasure, I can announce MaitlandGroup came 4th overall in the 6th Cornell University Real Estate Case Competition. We are all delighted and I think we are still in shock! This is a great achievement not only for our team, but also the University of Aberdeen - we are the first school outside of North America to reach the final! 

We managed to put together a great presentation but we have to admit our slides weren't as slick as some other Universities. That's some feedback we can give to next years team. 

After we found out the rankings - four judges approached us and stated we did a great job. They also mentioned that in the deliberation beforehand, some said we should have ranked higher as many aspects of our investment decision was in line with the actual transaction. This was extremely  encouraging. One of the judges was involved in the transaction and he delivered a small presentation so we could compare our decision with reality - thankfully we both invested! 

This experience has been a great opportunity and we can only thank the Univeristy for allowing us to compete - thank you! On behalf of the team, we also would like to give special thanks to Professor Hutchison for chaperoning us and for the encouragement on the day. 

It has been a great trip and a worthwhile academic experience. By participating in this prestigious event, we have hopefully exposed ourselves to more opportunities when we graduate. In my opinion, one of the best things to come out of this is highlighting my weaknesses - definitely need to brush up on some of my excel cash flow skills! 

To celebrate, we went out for a few drinks with some of the other universities. It was a pretty late night so we will definitely sleep on the plane home. We leave the city at 5.00pm so our last day will be spent going to see tourist attractions and a bit of shopping. 

I am also pleased to announce that we are the recipients of a cash prize of $1,500. We had no financial motivation so as a team we have decided to give a proportion of our winnings to charity. - Amy

Competition: Initial Result

So, we made it to the final -can't still believe we actually made it to the final! It's the world's biggest competition in Real Estate (and Finance) according to Mr. Dan Quan, which is absolutely incredible! - Maria

Sat round the lunch table and Dan Quan stands up to announce the finalists. We had all just said that we were quite happy not to present again. Round 1 we'd been up against China and Cambridge and while we were confident with our performance we weren't convinced we were better than them although we hadn't seen their presentations. The initial round had been in 5 different rooms and therefore 5 teams, one from each group, would be in the final. Working through the rooms finalists were announced...our room, 'Exchange Hub South' was called and then...'MaitlandGroup'!! 

We were stunned! Alina screamed and we all looked at each other as if it was some kind of joke. Fabiano, one of the judges, was sat at our table with us and she said: "well done guys, you deserve it and I didn't even give it away" 

Order drawn- we were 4th. Just over an hour to reassemble, take on the feedback and be ready to present to the whole panel of 18 judges and all the other teams who had stayed to watch. - Hannah

Competition: The Morning

Arrived back at the Convene for an 8am breakfast and meet the judges. We were all a bit tired after the night before finalising everything but we were ready and confident we wouldn't massively embarrass ourselves but also just thinking we would present once and enjoy the rest of our experience. 

We headed out for a walk after breakfast as we were last in our group to go and needed to keep cool heads away from the pressure of the Convene and all the other teams who were anxiously waiting- so we stopped and took a team photo by the Brooklyn Bridge- on Facebook it's been said we look like something out of the Apprentice.

Back at The Convene, time to present to a panel of 4 judges- big thanks again to all the judges for taking time out of their incredibly busy work schedules to come and judge the competition. The judges are all senior real estate individuals from all different areas of real estate from research to development plus everything in between. So in we walked to our room, shook hands with the judges and introduced ourselves and then we began what we've been building up to for the last 5 days.

We were all slightly nervous presenting but 15 minutes isn't long and we slightly misjudged timing resulting in missing the conclusion out- luckily due to the nature of the remit- we had stated our conclusion- to invest & develop- at the beginning and justified it throughout the presentation from all our financial and market analysis. 

Presentation over, it was time for Q and A's....always feels a little gruelling but the questions were things we had prepared but been unable to cover plus a couple seeking clarity over financials. The judges final words to us were 'Great Job'- we weren't sure if they were just saying that to everyone! 

Brief wait for our judges feedback- incredibly helpful constructive criticism which we took on board and made mental notes of for next years team paired nicely with lots of praise for our presentation and approach to the case study. Fabiana, the only female judge, was obviously loving that we were 4 women and 1 man all the other teams were male dominated.

Lunch and official photos followed this before the announcement of the finalists. - Hannah

The final hurdles are overcome!

We met at 7.30 this morning to finalise our presentation slides. Was a bit of a rush right down to the deadline but we're thankful it's all submitted.

This evening we attended the welcome reception at The Convene, in the financial district. We mingled with the other teams and had our rooms and positions drawn out a fishbowl ready for presenting tomorrow. 

We're up against 2 other teams in round 1- Cambridge and China- Battle of Britain....looks like it! 

Off to bed before an early start back at the convene for breakfast at 8am! Wish us luck ;) - Hannah

It's gonna be a late one...

The past two days have been extremely busy with the case study. 

Thankfully, we noticed a small error in our rental value calculation early on in the day. We are committed to our numbers (for now at least...) and we have a few more sections of our remit to address. I think it is going to be a late one as we would like to be slightly further ahead. Our presentation has to be submitted tomorrow evening! 

Hannah and I took a break in the evening and watched the New York 'Knicks' - the local basketball team - play North Carolina's 'Charlotte Hornets'. Safe to say we were part-time Knicks fans. It was a great match and we backed the right team.

Better get back to work! - Amy

Heads down....

Numbers being crunched....cash flows, rents, sales values, yields...the list goes on but possibly just had a breakthrough boosting moral and confidence! - Hannah

Happy Halloween!

We started off the day with breakfast at Andrew's Coffee Shop - another typical New York diner around the corner. Bagels and pancakes all round. We headed back to the hotel to resume work on the case. Today has been full of analysing comparable evidence, rental values, capital values, yields, GDV and construction costs. We are going to have to look into some of the evidence that has been provided further - especially a bit of formatting on tables to ensure values are in the same unit. Geltner and Miller are our new best friends! The book is really useful and provides a good template for the finance side of the project which Maria and Alina are progressing well with. 

The highlight of the day was a trip Downtown to visit the 9/11 Memorial. An interesting and emotional experience. We would definitely recommend you visit the museum if you are in town.

On our way back to the hotel, we seen some amazing (and scary...) Halloween costumes and even caught a glimpse of the Halloween Parade. New Yorkers certainly bring dressing up to another level. Great atmosphere in the City tonight. The Empire State Building has been lit up orange and green and makes a welcome change.

Our day begins at 7.30am tomorrow with a group meeting. - Amy 

Good Morning from New York!

After a sleepless night, we woke up early in anticipation of the case study. We went to Tick Tock (a typical New York diner) for breakfast burritoes and pulled pork omelettes - yum! The case was released at 8.00am and after a glitch with the printer we began reading shortly after. Initial impressions are that it is manageable but there is a lot of information to take in and graphs to decipher! Hannah, Vitali and I are delighted that it is more Real Estate-y. We are going to read through it again and aim to get the macroeconomic overview sorted today. An afternoon of hard work will be rewarded by a meal at 'Southern Hospitality' and a Broadway show. Hannah and I opted for The Lion King and Maria, Alina and Vitali are going to the Majestic Theatre to see Phantom of the Opera. It will be an early night for all as we are meeting with Professor Hutchison first thing for a debrief and to get stuck in! - Amy

Arrived in the bright lights of the big city

Hiya,

This is Maria writing. Just wanting to inform everybody that we have arrived safely in New York. 

Driving into the city we could see the whole skyline of New York in the dark as we approached by car. I wish I could describe it in words for you who haven't seen it, but it is impossible. Has to be seen with your own eyes.

Now it is 2am British time, we have planned tomorrow's study schedule in detail (as much as you can do at 2am British time) and are off to bed!

Goodnight 

//Maria

Photo: View from our hotel rooms - Hannah

And we're off....

Currently sitting on the flight from London Heathrow to JFK- we enjoyed our brisk walk through the airport but thankfully all boarded just as gate was closing. Here is a group photo of us bright and early this morning - Hannah

Start spreading the news...

Welcome to MaitlandGroup's blog. We hope you enjoy our posts. Be sure to check in regularly to share the journey with us!

Vitali, Hannah, Maria, Alina and myself have been selected to represent The University of Aberdeen in the 6th Annual Cornell University Real Estate Competition in New York City. The top undergraduate academic real estate programs in the world will be competing. This year's competition hosts a record number of participants as 17 Universities have registered. Accompanied by Real Estate lecturer, Professor Norman Hutchison, we leave on Wednesday (29th October) and are lucky enough to spend a week in the city that never sleeps - although I'm sure we will be ready go to bed as it is going to be hard work!

Here's just a brief overview of what we are up against:

A case study will be released on Thursday morning at 8.00am (EST) concerning a Finance and Real Estate investment. We have until Tuesday morning to get our heads round the detailed mass of information, carry out our own external research and prepare an investment recommendation. Not only that, but we have to present our analysis in front of the big players in the New York Real Estate and Finance market! This years judging panel consists of experts from TIAA CREF, Westbrook Partners, Blackstone Group, Prudential, Moody's Investors as well as other notable finance related companies.

We have looked over previous years' case studies and have already prepped some presentation slides so we are not up to the wee hours of the morning trying to put something together. Lecture notes and heavy books are packed and we are all looking forward to the trip. 

On behalf of the team, I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in organising this trip. It is certainly going to be an invaluable educational experience. - Amy