The MIT Center for Real Estate is pleased to announce the establishment of the David Geltner Catalyst Fund. We are inviting our alumni, friends, and partners to join us in celebrating his remarkable impact at MIT and around the world.
Professor Emeritus David Geltner has been at MIT since 2002 where he has held the George Macomber Chair and currently is Professor Emeritus of Real Estate Finance in the Department of Urban Studies & Planning.
Geltner served as Academic Director of the MIT Center for Real Estate during 2003-08 and from 2008-14 as faculty chair of MIT’s Master of Science in Real Estate Development (MSRED) program. He is the lead author of the most widely-cited real estate investments textbook, “Commercial Real Estate Analysis & Investments”, now in its third edition.
Recipient of the U.S. Pension Real Estate Association’s prestigious Graaskamp Award in 2011 for excellence and influence in real estate investment research, Geltner has served as Academic Advisor to the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF), and as Director of MIT’s Commercial Real Estate Data Laboratory which has developed pioneering commercial property price and investment performance indices based on transactions prices (including the Moody’s/RCA CPPI, the NCREIF-based TBI, and the FTSE-NAREIT PureProperty® Indices).
“This is an industry that has always needed to use a lot of numbers, but it is an industry that never had real data,”
david geltner – Nareit magazine article
In 2017, Geltner oversaw the launch of Price Dynamics Platform with Alex van de Minne and served as faculty director through 2021. The platform, whose research and analysis is available to the public, advances real estate investment-related analytics in such areas as price and rent indexing and automated valuation models. These models have real-world impact improving investment and management decisions.
This new endowed fund will honor the legacy of Professor Emeritus David Geltner, who has distinguished himself as a leading scholar, a thoughtful teacher, a caring mentor, and a pathbreaking thinker in commercial property and real estate finance. In this light, the fund will be dedicated to supporting CRE lecturers to advance research and teaching in these fields and to providing fellowships for MSRED graduate students.
Given all that David has done for the Center, we are now launching a fundraising challenge to match Mr. Robert M. White Jr.’s gift. We are looking to the CRE community, and especially our alumni, to raise another $250,000 in matching gifts toward this impactful fund. We hope you will consider joining us by making a gift.
