Two signature events recently hosted by the Ohio State Center for Real Estate demonstrated its commitment to serving as a valuable link and a resource for industry leaders and real estate scholars.

The center’s 2018 Real Estate Conference offered attendees insights into what the “city of the future” may look like, with experts sharing what steps current cities need to take to prepare for tomorrow.

The event featured a keynote by Peter Calthorpe, founder and principal of Calthorpe Associates. His company is devoted to sustainable urban design and global planning.

The conference centered on principles for planning and building resilient cities, the future of transportation infrastructure and how the real estate industry will utilize emerging technology, such as blockchain and driverless vehicles.

Blockchain is a secure, global digital ledger used to share and maintain a chronological record of virtual transactions involving data of all kinds, from cryptocurrency to medical records to real estate contracts.

Kevin Shtofman, real state technology strategy manager for Deloitte, spoke about blockchain, while a panel that included Lewis Fulton, PhD and co-director of the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis; Ronald Milam, a partner with Fehr & Peers, a transportation consulting company; and Peter Calthorpe, shared insights on driverless vehicles and the potential risks they pose. William Murdock, executive director of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, moderated the discussion.

“As technology and innovation become larger players in the real estate industry, events such as our annual conference provide opportunities for our partners to connect with industry leaders,” said Mary Beth McCormick, executive director of the Ohio State Center for Real Estate. “We look forward to working with our partners to make an even greater impact in real estate, beginning with students here at Ohio State and expanding to include the broader community of real estate professionals.”

In addition to serving real estate practitioners, the center also delivered on its mission of advancing academic, real estate-focused research, as it brought together doctoral students from leading institutions across the country at its PhD Conference on Real Estate and Housing.

This event, which sought to create a multidisciplinary understanding of real estate and housing-related research, was created in partnership with the center, the John Glenn College of Public Affairs, the Knowlton School of Architecture and Fisher College of Business. The conference was organized by PhD students and featured keynote speaker Professor Ingrid Gould Ellen, director of the Urban Planning Program at New York University. She spoke about housing subsidies and children’s educational outcomes.

“The PhD Conference was a great opportunity for doctoral students from across Ohio State to work together to lead an event that explored the underlying issues faced by real estate academics and practitioners today,” said Professor Itzhak Ben-David, academic director of the Ohio State Center for Real Estate. “The research discussed at the conference represents some of the finest work being conducted by the next generation of real estate thought leaders.”

The conference included four sessions. The first focused on neighborhoods and ownership. Topics included the decline in young people owning homes, the impact of housing search websites on the rental housing market, along with developments related to income segregation and housing prices.

The second session included discussions on distress among developers related to house sellers, issues with mortgage services and aggressive foreclosures.

The third examined the “real” effects of real estate and included thoughts on the distributional impact of mortgage interest subsidies, the effect of Chinese asset demand on prices and renting in the U.S. housing markets, along with the effects of evictions on low-income adults.

The final session centered on what determines housing prices. Topics included controlling house price cycles with mortgage policy and a conversation about the potential of school shootings eroding property values.

The event was sponsored by the Ohio State Center for Real Estate, the John Glenn College of Public Affairs, the Knowlton School of Architecture and Huntington Bank.