A team from Monmouth University’s Kislak Real Estate Institute recently won first place at the school’s second annual Intercollegiate Real Estate Academic Competition. — Courtesy: Peter Reinhart/Monmouth University
By Joshua Burd
The Kislak Real Estate Institute at Monmouth University recently hosted its second annual Intercollegiate Real Estate Academic Competition, where students from the West Long Branch school won top honors among six teams that participated.
The Nov. 1 program, which was sponsored by the Kislak Family Foundation, drew students from Baruch College, Lehigh University, Monmouth, Montclair State University, Rutgers University and Villanova University. Each team of four students had four weeks to prepare a detailed analysis of a redevelopment property in Toms River before presenting to two panels of distinguished real estate professionals.
The team from Monmouth’s Kislak Institute won the competition, with Baruch finishing in second place.
“We are extremely proud of the hard work and creative ideas the team put together,” said Monmouth Professor Irene McFarland, who coached the Kislak team. “This was their first time competing in this type of competition and the students learned much about real estate along with teamwork.”
The judges included appraiser Russell Sterling, principal at Sterling DiSanto & Associates; Neena Miller, senior vice president and chief credit officer at OceanFirst Bank; Toms River Township Planner David Roberts; Jonathan Fisher, senior vice president at K. Hovnanian Homes, Steven Denholtz, CEO of Denholtz Properties; Kenneth Orchard, president of TriState Capital Bank; Stephen Santola, executive vice president and general counsel at Woodmont Properties; and Matt Weilheimer of The Kislak Co. Inc.
Following the morning elimination round, four finalists presented again to the full panel of eight judges. The panels based their decision on a combination of the ideas, feasibility analysis, methodology and presentation.
Monmouth team members included senior Brittany Leventoff of South Fallsburg, New York, along with juniors James Azarian of Franklin Lakes and Isaac Beda from West Long Branch and sophomore Michael Pavicic of Princeton.
“We enter our students in several intercollegiate real estate academic competitions each year,” said Peter Reinhart, director of the Kislak Real Estate Institute at Monmouth. “No matter the result, we hear from our students how much they learn from participating in the competition.
“Many of our alumni tell us that competing is one of the highlights of their academic career.”