Certificate in Commercial Real Estate: University of Washington

[Vito T.]

Hello,

I have a BS in accounting and am currently employed by a local commercial developer (Seattle Area.) I assist with operations and construction management (including some physical tasks.)

Having already completed undergrad, I would like to take a step toward furthering my real estate education.

Has anyone completed a certificate program in Commercial Real Estate? How has it benefited your career? I am looking into a local program with the University of Washington.

Any advice or experiences would be welcome.

Regards

[Zach Schwarzmiller]

@Vito T.

I've taken the UW's Certificate Program in Commercial Real Estate program as well as all of the CCIM classes. I feel they are both extremely valuable in different ways.

If you work for a local developer and have goals of exceling within the development world (whether it’s by yourself someday or within your company) I think the Certificate Program would be great option. Every class is a different industry professional ranging the whole spectrum of Commercial Real Estate. You get to learn, network and pick the brains of some of Seattle’s best developers, and other industry professionals who work in this local market. It’s extremely core Seattle centric, but you still learn a lot. For my class project we designed and simulated the steps necessary to start developing a 31 unit micro-housing at UW. We actually found and equity partner to move forward with the project as it was extremely profitable and a huge demand for that type of product; however, someone bought the land before we could and was not interested in partnership. BUT the fact that a certificate program at the UW took me that far is AWESOME!

CCIM is good if you want to understand valuation of real estate very in-depth. It’s a brokers/investors world and has no relation to development it’s all existing assets, unless they’ve changed the class around.