Research and Publications
The MIT Center for Real Estate sponsors research by its faculty in numerous areas of real estate including the economics of property markets, the impacts of regulation, and the sources of equity and debt financing. Additional research, in the form of faculty-supervised student thesis work, contributes to a growing inventory of new information. The research program is essential to promoting new knowledge, advancing teaching techniques, and bridging the gap between theory and practice.
Faculty research results are published by the Center as working papers before they appear in professional journals. Selected student theses are also available through the Center. Working papers are disseminated within MIT and to other universities as well as to the industry.
Through its research, MIT/CRE seeks to broaden the understanding of the operation of an industry that represents a quarter of the U.S. gross domestic product.
We have several research initiatives at various stages of development, most notably in urban design, development, and technology (New Century Development), housing affordability (the Affordable Housing Initiative), and commercial property pricing (the Commercial Real Estate Data Laboratory).
New Century Development (NCD)
New Century Development (NCD) is the Center’s initiative to undertake research activities and communication forums aimed at understanding and improving the physical real estate development process in the 21st century. This initiative is meant to be interdisciplinary and international in scope, providing avenues to link across various departments at MIT, and between MIT and the community of professional practice engaged in building the developments of the future.
Housing Affordability Initiative (HAI)
The Housing Affordability Initiative represents a long-term commitment of the Center for Real Estate and the Department of Urban Studies and Planning to focus the considerable resources of MIT on housing affordability issues.
Commercial Real Estate Data Laboratory (CREDL)
The purpose of the CREDL project is to gather data and measure the performance of commercial real estate, and to develop practical methodologies and tools to evaluate that performance. CREDL also provides a public space for analysis and perspective on issues of commercial real estate, bringing together academic research and industry practices in an innovative collaboration
