Mark Dotzour to Open VCU School of Business’ Real Estate Trends Conference

By Tom Gresham

Leading industry experts will deliver economic and real estate forecasts and other insights at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Business’ 21st annual Real Estate Trends Conference next month.

The conference, which is organized by the Real Estate Program in the VCU School of Business, will be held on Oct. 11 at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. Doors open with a continental breakfast at 7:30 a.m. The program starts at 8:30 a.m.

The conference is expected to attract more than 800 people from both the academic and professional ranks, representing segments such as banking, engineering, investments, consulting, government, brokerage and appraisal.

Mark Dotzour, Ph.D., chief economist of the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, will provide an economic overview and forecast as the conference’s opening speaker. Dotzour will synthesize global, social and economic trends to provide the audience with tools for making investment and business decisions.

In the “Hot Topics” section of the program, John Martin, president and CEO of Strategies Insights Results, will discuss demographic trends, Mark Calabria, director of financial studies at the Cato Institute, will discuss the future of government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) from a market/private sector perspective and Janneke Ratcliffe, executive director of the University of North Carolina Center for Community Capital, will analyze GSEs from a government involvement perspective.

The conference will conclude with a commercial real estate panel discussion, “The Road to Recovery or Trending Towards the Cliff,” addressing the state of the commercial real estate market and its future. Panelists include Martin Cropp, co-head of the mortgage line of business and a senior managing director of investment production for Principal Real Estate Investors; Kim S. Diamond, senior managing director, co-head of structured finance at Kroll Bond Rating Agency; and Jeffrey Fastov, co-head of the commercial mortgage lending and securitization business at Credit Suisse.

For more information, visit the conference’s website at http://www.realestate.vcu.edu/.