A team of six students from Cornell's undergraduate minor in real estate earned first place in the third annual Cornell International Real Estate Case Competition Nov. 10. This marked the second win for Cornell since the university's Center for Real Estate and Finance established the competition in 2009.

"I was so impressed by all the teams that participated this year. Each analysis was smart and insightful, and the hard work the students put into their presentations was obvious," said Daniel Quan, Singapore Tourism Board Distinguished Professor in Asian Hospitality Management at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, who organized the event.

Teams representing 11 universities had four days to analyze and prepare investment recommendations for a case developed by Clarion Partners based on an actual strategic financial positioning management project in Manhattan. Acting as advisory firms, each team had 20 minutes to present their recommended strategy to judges and answer questions. The competition took place at TIAA-CREF headquarters in New York City.

The Cornell team won the preliminary round against Indiana University, Maastricht University, and last year's champion, New York University. In the final round, Cornell went up against University of Wisconsin at Madison, which took second place, and Pennsylvania State University, which placed third. Other teams competing in the event were Renmin University of China, University of Connecticut, University of Guelph, University of Michigan and Villanova University.

The caliber of competition has grown each year, Quan said. "We also had the most teams ever, and we were able to offer the largest prizes so far: $10,000 for first place, $4,000 for second and $2,000 for third," he added.

Team members, all Class of 2012, were Omer Ben-Zur, Christine Boyd, Siheng Han, Andrew Quinn, Steven Rowe and Darren Wang; Collin Hoo '12, Shirley Gu '13 and Amy Yao '13, were alternates.

The Cornell team was coached by Quan; Wally Boudry, assistant professor of real estate; and Judi Brownell, the Hotel School's dean of students and professor of management and organizational behavior.

Judges of the competition included Peter Baccile '84, vice chairman at J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., and Alan Krause '52, MBA '53, chairman of Mid‐America Management Corp.

Ashlee McGandy is a staff writer at the School of Hotel Administration.