BERKELEY, Calif. – December 8, 2017 – The Northern California Chapter of Society of Industrial and Office Realtors® (SIOR) has announced a sponsorship program with the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. The SIOR chapter, along with matching funds from Washington, DC-based SIOR Foundation, is sponsoring Cal’s Undergraduate Real Estate Club in the coming year.
The organizations hosted the first joint event last week. Featured panelists included Steve Kapp, executive managing director of Newmark Knight Frank; Mark Maguire, executive vice president of Colliers International; Michael Murray, a principal with Lift Partners and Jeffrey Weil, executive vice president of Colliers International. The brokerage speakers hold either undergraduate or graduate degrees from UC Berkeley.
The meeting was attended by more than 50 students and moderated by seniors Marcus Missirlian and Tyler Zhou. The overall event theme was career development. The professionals discussed how they started their careers and their current work scope. Each panelist also presented a case study of a current or recently completed real estate project. In addition, the brokers discussed market conditions within their respective product type specialties.
Missirlian and Zhou are co-presidents of the Undergraduate Real Estate Club, which is a student-operated network to help fellow students develop the necessary skills to enter the real estate industry. The club has different focus groups, including brokerage services, investment, development, architecture and corporate services. UREC provides a variety of resources, workshops and outlets to not only develop members professionally, but to build lasting relationships and foster community. The Real Estate Program at the Haas School of Business was recently ranked second in the country by U.S. News & World Report.
The SIOR Foundation promotes and funds programs that advance the real estate profession through educational scholarships, critical research projects, and publishing and development of real estate curricula for higher education. The charitable giving supports students enrolled in college undergraduate and graduate real estate studies in pursuit of degrees associated with commercial real estate.
The SIOR Foundation awarded grants totaling $162,000 for fiscal year 2016-2017 (which ran September 1 to August 31) and is committed to granting $220,000 in funds for the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Funds are distributed as matching scholarships with chapters and in programs such as the Student Real Estate Experience Program, SIOR Report Authors Grant, SIOR Speaker Grants and research grants. Participating colleges have included Saint Louis University, the University of Northern Iowa, the University of Connecticut, Clemson University, Northwestern University, York University (Canada), UCLA and USC, in addition to the Northern California Chapter.
About SIOR
The SOCIETY OF INDUSTRIAL AND OFFICE REALTORS® (SIOR) is the leading professional office and industrial real estate association. SIOR members complete more than 80,000 transactions annually. SIOR has more than 3,000 members in more than 630 cities in 34 countries. SIOR represents today’s most knowledgeable, experienced, and successful commercial real estate brokerage specialists. Real estate professionals who have earned the SIOR designation are recognized as the most capable and experienced brokerage practitioners in any market.