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Dear Friends,
As we close the 2022–23 academic year, we’re proud to report that this was an excellent year for the Ziman Center across all dimensions. With the pandemic mostly behind us, campus life is once again vibrant and robust. We have enjoyed fully interacting with each other in person, including with our students, faculty, alumni and the professional community. The richness of these connections is at the core of the Ziman Center’s value proposition, and we are grateful to be back in unencumbered operational mode.
In this spring/summer edition of Intervals, you will learn that it has been a very busy and productive period. And we have big plans for the 2023–24 year, which will be another period of continued growth, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
As always, we thank you for your ongoing engagement and support.
Sincerely,
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|  |  | Tim Kawahara
Executive Director
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| ZC-Riordan Scholars Program Comes Full Circle
For the past decade, the Ziman Center has designed and offered a real estate teaching module for the Riordan Scholars Program at UCLA Anderson. The mission is to motivate high school students who come from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds — often the first in their families to attend college — to consider and prepare for careers in business. Riordan Scholar Fabrizio Robalino (third from left), who graduated from the program in 2016 and went on to earn his B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, exemplifies the vision of the program’s benefactor, Richard Riordan, who recently passed away at age 92. Fabrizio is now a senior investment analyst for acquisitions and development at SoLa Impact Fund, whose investing strategy aims to revitalize historically tough urban areas. We were proud to welcome him back to Anderson as a volunteer judge this year and as a future instructor in the real estate module.
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| UCLA Team Takes 2nd Place in Kellogg Real Estate Venture Competition
UCLA Anderson and the Ziman Center are proud to announce that our student team 7th Surface Developments won second place at the ninth annual Kellogg Real Estate Venture Competition held at Northwestern University. Class of 2023 teammates Betsy Linares, Jordan Ferguson and Andrés Giovanni (“Gio”) Lincón focused their concept on raising capital to construct vital civic facilities in underserved neighborhoods. Specifically, they repositioned distressed retail or medical assets into medical office buildings, with the strategy to enhance preventative and primary care in collaboration with community leaders.
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| Levine Program Partners with Social Impact Consulting Corps
As a component of the Ziman Center’s Levine Program in Housing and Social Responsibility, the Ziman Center sponsored three MBA student field study teams to undertake pro bono management consulting assignments for three separate clients: Human-I-T, Southern California Association of Non-Profit Housing (SCANPH) and Housing on Merit. The field studies were part of the Social Impact Consulting Corps at the Center for Impact at UCLA Anderson. The program gives MBA students the experience of applying theoretical concepts of business to real-world problems. The consultants’ management expertise in turn provides mission-driven nonprofits and social enterprises with solutions to specific strategic challenges. And the outcomes are real: SCANPH sought and was awarded a $5,000 grant to implement the Anderson team’s recommendations.
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| A New Paradigm for L.A.
The Honorable Karen Bass, Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, headlined the 2023 Los Angeles Business Council’s Mayoral Housing, Transportation and Jobs Summit, hosted by the Ziman Center. For 21 years, the annual summit has brought together public and private leaders to discuss improving the livability and economic competitiveness of Los Angeles and California. Other public officials on the program included: U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters; Jason Pu, Region 9 administrator in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Lourdes Castro Ramirez, secretary at the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency; Toks Omishakin, secretary of the California State Transportation Agency; Mayor of the City of Sacramento Darrell Steinberg; County of Los Angeles Supervisor Holly Mitchell; Stephanie Wiggins, CEO of LA Metro; and Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. UCLA speakers included Chancellor Gene Block, Richard Ziman and Distinguished Professor Stuart Gabriel.
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Celebrating Student Fellowships and the 2023 John S. Long Award Recipient
The Ziman Center’s 2022–23 Peter Bren, Howard and Irene Levine, and Tracy Family fellows celebrated with senior professionals representing each of the groups’ benefactors, including Zack Georgeson, co-founder and managing partner at Mile Rock Capital, and Brian D’Andrea (’05), SVP at Century Housing. The Tracy Family Fellowship was generously endowed by Ziman Center founding board member Scott Tracy and his family to provide financial aid to our most deserving and accomplished MBA students. The 2023 John S. Long Outstanding Student in Real Estate Award, named for the CEO of Highridge Partners and founding chairman of the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate’s board, was awarded to Nicholas Fong (’23). Nicholas embodies the criteria of the award: contributions to the real estate program at UCLA Anderson, academic achievement, efforts to help peers and overall leadership.
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| UCLA/CSUN Report Reveals Strategies to Tackle the Housing Crisis
Streamlining the entitlement and approval process would dramatically accelerate multifamily housing production in Los Angeles, according to a landmark study funded by the Los Angeles Business Council Institute that details bottlenecks and identifies potential policy reforms. The new study from UCLA and California State University, Northridge, examines why Los Angeles has long failed to keep pace with housing demands of a growing population. The findings provide empirical evidence that recent and proposed measures — including Mayor Karen Bass’ Executive Directive No. 1, which fast-tracks approval of affordable housing projects; and state laws that exempt qualifying mixed-income projects from discretionary reviews — would have added a significant number of housing units during the period reviewed.
Read the Report
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| Housing, Financial Markets and Monetary Policy
Providing a valuable platform for knowledge exchange and the advancement of research for a broad range of scholars, the Ziman Center’s May 2023 housing conference covered wealth redistribution in the mortgage market, risk in the GSEs, wealth effects in the housing market and the impact of monetary policy on housing.
Conference Agenda
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Achievements in Service and Scholarship
We congratulate two Ziman Center scholars on earning UCLA Anderson’s recognition for excellence in teaching and research. Distinguished Professor and Ziman Center director Stuart Gabriel was awarded the J. Clayburn La Force Faculty Leadership Award, which honors an individual Anderson faculty member’s outstanding service to the school. Ziman Center doctoral research fellow Edward Kim was awarded the Xavier Drèze Prize, which recognizes the best Ph.D. student research paper.
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| Who Picks up the Tab for Measure ULA?
In 2022, the voters of the City of Los Angeles approved a new tax on the transfer of property that targets transaction values of $5 million or greater. The goal of Measure ULA, as it’s called, is to increase funding to affordable housing. UCLA Anderson Forecast director Jerry Nickelsburg analyzed several plausible scenarios involving commercial buyers and sellers in which L.A. taxpayers could end up paying a large portion of the transfer tax.
Read the March 2023 UCLA Economic Letter
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Refinancing Inequality — Another Repercussion of the Digital Divide
Access to high-speed internet is one of the most prominent equalizing forces in the modern era. Yet millions of American households live without a wired broadband connection at home. UCLA Anderson finance Ph.D. student and Xavier Drèze Prize winner Edward Kim has studied data to link inequities in mortgage refinancing to the persistent gap in access to information technology among low-income and minority households. Kim posits an imbalance in central banks’ accommodative monetary policy during economic downturns as a result of the digital divide.
Read the April 2023 UCLA Economic Letter
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| Susan Booth and Thomas Safran Boost ZC Support
Two long-time supporters of the Ziman Center recently made transformational gifts to support real estate education at the Ziman Center. Board member Susan Booth, partner at Holland & Knight, made an estate gift to establish the Susan J. Booth Fellowship, which will provide financial aid to MBA students pursuing careers in real estate. Board member Tom Safran, chairman of Thomas Safran & Associates, made a gift that will provide full scholarships to two students attending the Ziman Center’s highly recognized Levine Affordable Housing Development Program. Thank you, Susan and Tom!
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Responses to the Current Economic Environment
The Ziman Center’s 2023 spring board meeting featured a keynote conversation with Hessam Nadji, president and CEO of Marcus & Millichap. Nadji discussed how private and institutional capital are responding to market disruptions and engaging in this cautious, inflationary and volatile period. His presentation was followed by a panel discussion with: Matt Evans, CIO at Dedeaux Properties; Malcolm Johnson, CEO at Langdon Park Capital; and Gary Mozer, executive managing director of IPA. The Ziman Center was also pleased to welcome new board members: Susan Booth, partner at Holland & Knight LLP; Spencer Kallick, partner at Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP; Douglas McCauley, commissioner of California Department of Real Estate; and Gary Mozer.
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| Affordable Housing Advisory Council
The Ziman Center’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee 2023 spring board meeting featured a timely panel discussion titled “Banking, a Credit Crunch and Real Estate: How Will Multifamily and Affordable Housing Production Be Affected?” Moderated by AHAC chair Robert Wasserman (’98), president of Huntington Community Development Corp, the panel included: Damon Allen, senior vice president, chief marketing and housing and community investment officer at Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati; Kate Ferguson, director of multifamily programs for the California Housing Finance Agency; Stuart Gabriel, Distinguished Professor of Finance and Arden Realty Chair, and director of the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate; and Trish Kelly, executive vice president of commercial real estate at Huntington National Bank. Panelists discussed the performance of the broader markets and the need for banks to preserve capital, as well as challenges to affordable housing development that developers and municipalities face, such as delays and financing hurdles.
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Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles Honors Bob Hart
Longtime Ziman Center board member Robert “Bob” Hart (’83) was honored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles at its Real Estate and Construction Network Dinner at the Beverly Hilton. Hart was recognized for his philanthropic legacy as the founder, CEO and president of TruAmerica Multifamily. Rabbi Noah Farkas, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, said, “Bob represents everything that is good about his profession and the Jewish community of Los Angeles. Bob is not just a titan and leader of his industry. He also understands deeply the importance of giving back and helping build community.” The Ziman Center is grateful to Bob for his support of our students over the years. Well done, Bob!
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Revisit a Busy Spring
The Ziman Center collaborated with other UCLA faculty, centers and schools to involve the wider campus and Los Angeles communities in a number of timely virtual events we invite you to revisit:
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2022–23 Spring Programming and Events
The additional gatherings we hosted and/or supported in addition to those already mentioned above:
BREA D48 with Alex Valente, April 11
REAG Wrapper Building Tour and Happy Hour, April 13
RELA Investiture, April 20
BREA D48 with Danielle Duenas, April 25
BREA D48 with Adam Lurie, May 1
AREA D48 with Randy Mai, May 3
Thought Leadership Convening: Housing Opportunities and Challenges for Los Angeles Community College District, May 16
BREA-REAG Case Competition, May 18
ZC Spring Mixer, May 22
AREA D48 with Laurel Casey, May 31
REAG McCarthy Cook Lumen Tour and Happy Hour, June 1
Housing Sustainability and Affordability Conference @ University of Wisconsin-Madison, June 4–5
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“Is now the time to make new dramatic moves in commercial real estate? Ask these additional questions: Is inflation still with us? Even though the Fed may pause, rates aren’t coming down so fast; so, are we or will we be in a recession? If yes, will it be mild or severe? Will there be a crush of small and medium banks with large exposure to real estate? What impact will the office building fallout have on financial institutions? Is the market willing or able to continue new construction and acquisition or make loans? Before taking advantage of the distress we see today, perhaps STOP, LOOK and LISTEN.”
Richard S. Ziman
Founder, UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate, and
Co-Founder and Chairman, Rexford Industrial Realty
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| September 20–22 and 27–29 (by application only)
UCLA Levine Affordable Housing Development Program
UCLA Anderson School of Management
October 7, 2023, time TBD 3 hours before kickoff (REAG members only)
UCLA Real Estate Alumni Group Tailgate
UCLA Football vs. Washington State
Rose Bowl Stadium, Pasadena
October 12–13, 2023 (by invitation only)
UCLA Real Estate Alumni Group Endowment Circle 2nd Annual Fall Retreat
UCLA Lake Arrowhead Lodge, Lake Arrowhead
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110 Westwood Plaza, Gold Hall, Suite B100
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
(310) 206-9424
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