| Program start date | Application deadline |
| 2023-09-01 | - |
Program Overview
Who is it for?
This master’s is for you if your goal is to succeed in real estate, in the UK or internationally, and across the residential, commercial or industrial property sectors. You may be a recent graduate from any subject (with the equivalent of a UK upper second degree), or currently working in finance or real estate, or looking for a career switch.
You already have an interest in real estate and some experience with quantitative methods. Now you’re ready to build your skills and industry connections to develop your career.
If you have a strong background or interest in quantitative methods please take a look at our MSc Real Estate Investment – you can apply for both and we will suggest which will suit you better.
I chose Bayes due to its strong international and financial reputation. Financial literacy is increasingly important in the real estate industry and compared to other programmes that I’d looked at, the MSc in Real Estate, offered a stronger focus on finance. Toward the end of my MSc, I secured a place on a graduate programme at JLL, a world-leader in real estate services. I am still with them today and I have progressed to the role of Senior Surveyor in the Central London Development Team. Now working in the industry, I see how much I learnt and got out of the experience both professionally and personally.
- Harriet Walke-Arnott
Objectives
On the Bayes Master’s in Real Estate, you’ll develop the essential skills for a successful real estate career: valuation, financial modelling, market analysis, development appraisal and cash flow modelling.
Choose our more UK-focused path, covering law, applied valuation and taxation, if you want to join the graduate-entry programmes of chartered surveying firms and take the RICS Assessment of Professional Competence. Or, if your ambitions lie in investment, finance, development or outside the UK, choose a path that focuses more on development and planning, investment vehicles and portfolios, or international markets.
Both paths are underpinned by robust academic theory, quantitative methods and practical experience. You’ll learn from highly experienced staff and industry professionals, who provide you with the latest industry techniques and practical tools.
Program Outline
Structure
- Take your next step to a successful career on a course that’s accredited by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and valued by major employers in real estate around the world.
- Learn from experts in the industry, all with senior-level experience who are active in research, and from guest speakers from London, a global real estate hub.
- Develop the professional, financial and practical skills that are in high demand across the industry, from staff who focus on post-grad students.
- Opt for electives that best match your ambitions, including the chance to study in New York, Madrid, Dubai and Italy.
- Connect with professionals and employers from London’s thriving real estate industry through seminars, our students’ Real Estate Club, our mentoring scheme and industry events.
The first term covers the portfolio of core real estate professional skills – quantitative methods in data analysis, valuation, investment, asset management and understanding real estate markets.
In the second term, our two core modules, applied appraisal and financial modelling, will expand on and apply the core real estate principles and methods you studied in the first term.
Your second term module choices provide two learning “pathways”.
If your aim is 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, taxation and applied valuation. If you aim to work in fund management, finance, development or outside the UK, you can tilt toward development and planning, investment vehicles and portfolios or international markets. Either way, your choice will not pre-determine the jobs available to you.
Induction weeks
All of our MSc courses start with two compulsory induction weeks which include relevant refresher courses, an introduction to the careers services and the annual careers fair.
Term 1
Principles of Appraisal
A module to set out the financial principles and core techniques used in valuation, cash flow modelling and investment decisions, which underpin the rest of the course. You will learn how to value a building, how to use forecasts to model future cash flows and investment returns.
Applied Data Analysis
To assess real estate markets and investments you will need skills in data analysis and business statistics. The module, from a base no higher than middle-school mathematics, shows you how to manipulate data and apply statistics to answering practical questions like measuring the return and risk on investments and using a basic regression model to explain market trends.
Asset and Fund Management
The management of real estate is critical to the success of all businesses. This module looks at issues like the role of real estate in firm strategy, cost control and benchmarking, layout and working practices which are critical for both occupiers of space and property owners who provide the space.
Economics and Market Analysis
A course in economics is standard for all Business School students. Here you will learn not only those general economic principles but also how they apply to real estate: what determines rent in different places, how differences in rent shape the skyline of our cities, why real estate development notoriously swings from boom to bust.
Term 2
Applied Appraisal
Shows how the principles and basic methods covered in Term 1 are extended to cover specialist property types like pubs and hotels, and are used in negotiations between landlords and tenants to decide terms for giving up, extending or transferring leases.
Financial Modelling
Real estate is often financed with a mix of equity and debt. Here you will learn the cash flow modelling techniques which underpin the use of senior, junior and mezzanine debt packages, and how to measure their impacts on the returns and risks of investment, with ample use of case studies and hands-on computer classes.
Plus any two of the following:
Applied Valuation and Taxation
Examines the statutory aspects of appraisal in the UK. Rating law and procedures, and taxation, particularly capital gains and value added tax, are also studied in depth.
Landlord and Tenant Law
Provides a sound knowledge of legislation and case law affecting the commercial property market in order to enable students to apply the legislation when undertaking valuations and appraisals of such premises.
Investment Vehicles and Portfolios
The module first covers the main forms of real estate investment – direct, unlisted funds and listed companies – to develop an understanding of the structures used in the capital markets, and their performance. It then examines the approaches used by investors and fund managers to set investment objectives and structure portfolios to meet those objectives.
Development and Planning
A development is like a new business start-up, with a sequence of high-risk steps to go through – planning, design, financing construction, letting, final sale. The development module shows how those steps are managed, the valuation and cash-flow appraisals that drive development, with a case-study and hands-on modelling approach.
Term 3
Business Research Project
The last block of your course, the Business Research Project (BRP), is the one you design and build for yourself. It takes the form of a report of around 8,000 words submitted in August. We see the BRP as your opportunity to have a showpiece which shows potential employers what you know, what you can do, your ability to produce good-quality individual work.
BRP's come in the full range of forms. To give a few examples:
- Some are mostly about technical methods (a forecasting model for London offices, REITs and asset allocation in the USA)
- Others review trends and prospect in specific real estate markets (like housing in Hong Kong, investment in Africa)
- Or look at topical questions (like the impact of e-tailing on real estate, sustainability and building values)
- Or look in-depth at specific development projects (Kings Cross in London, a resort in Montenegro).
Term 3 Electives
In term three, you also pick a set of three elective topics from around six modules specific to real estate plus a range run by other Bayes Masters programmes – some of them taught on trips to locations outside the UK. So you can focus on:
- Added core real estate topics like building management, sustainability, residential markets.
- Or on the investment aspects of the industry like REITs, real estate funds and portfolio construction.
- Or pick up on more general topics such as private equity and project management taught by experts from other Bayes programmes.
Electives offered in 2021
- Corporate Restructuring
- Ethics, Society and the Finance Sector
- Hedge Funds
- Mergers & Acquisitions
- Private Equity Investment
- Visual Basics in Finance
- Retail Supply Chain Management
- Advanced Modelling and Risk Analysis
- Building Project Management and Procurement.
International electives
- FinTech (taught in Italy)
- International Real Estate Markets (taught in Dubai, UAE)
- Investment Strategy (taught in New York, USA)
- Project Finance and Infrastructure Investment (taught in Madrid, Spain).
Please note that electives are subject to change and availability.
Your MSc in Real Estate opens up a broad range of careers connected with real estate. You could join the graduate entry scheme of a major UK chartered surveyor. Or find a role at a smaller agency, fund manager, developer, investment or lending bank, public agency, rating agency or research company. Recent graduates now work as analysts, property managers and surveyors all around the world, or have set up their own businesses.
You’ll get specialist support from the Bayes Careers Service, who have contacts with businesses across the industry. They arrange recruitment visits from the largest real estate employers and send regular job alerts.
Class profile
Recent graduates from the MSc in Real Estate degree have secured positions in companies including:
- Analyst - Real Estate Investment - Eastdil Secured
- Graduate Surveyor - Healthcare - JLL
- Analyst - Acquisitions/Asset Management - Round Hill Capital
- Trainee Land Buyer - South - Land division - Crest Nicholson PLC
- Analyst - Portfolio Management - Greystar
Connecting with employers
- From week one, we host recruitment visits from all the largest real estate employers – like CBRE, JLL, Cushman Wakefield, Savills – plus other firms in real estate fund management, development, finance.
- Our real estate specialists in the Bayes Careers Service hold contacts with businesses across the industry, and will notify you of job opportunities as they come in through the year.
- You will have un-matched opportunities to network with professionals and employers across London’s vibrant real estate industry at seminars and an annual conference run by our students’ Real Estate Club, and through our mentoring scheme which matches you up with a Bayes graduate, and through industry events outside Bayes.
Previous graduates have gone on to work in property and real estate across the UK, EU and Asia.
(Data provided from alumni who completed the annual destination data survey for 2020/21 and 2019/20).