As a young college graduate, Barrett Slade wasn’t looking for a job in real estate. Now a professor of finance and real estate at the BYU Marriott School of Business, Slade strives to equip his students with practical tools to thrive in the “real world” of real estate. He is driven by something he appreciates even more than property valuation—witnessing his students succeed.
After graduating from BYU with a bachelor’s degree in economics, Slade needed work experience. A friend offered him a research position in commercial real estate appraisal, and to Slade’s surprise, he fell in love with the work. “It was one of those things I didn’t anticipate,” he recalls. “I didn’t even know much about it, and yet it lit me up.”
Slade was captivated by the different types of properties and their valuations. He explains, “Because no two properties are exactly the same, there’s always a kind of mystery at work.”
His newfound fascination changed everything: Slade went on to earn a master’s degree in managerial economics from BYU Marriott, work as the chief appraiser and vice president of First Interstate Bank in Arizona, and start his own appraisal and consulting business. But at the height of his professional career, Slade felt pulled to a different path. He decided to pursue a PhD in real estate from the University of Georgia. Soon after completing his degree, he was hired as a member of BYU Marriott’s finance faculty.
Twenty-seven years later, Slade is the James M. Passey Professor of Finance and the author of numerous academic articles and two books on real estate. His first book, The Valuation of Office Properties: A Contemporary Perspective, was commissioned by the Appraisal Institute, an international association of professional real estate professionals.
Slade wrote his most recent book, Real Estate: A Household Wealth Perspective, to lower textbook costs and ensure relevant reading material for the students in his course, Finance 413: Real Estate Finance and Investment. The book’s topics were primarily determined by student interest and the skills Slade found most applicable for students’ futures, such as buying a home, financing a mortgage, or investing in real estate properties.
In FIN 413, which Slade refers to as a “real estate toolbox class,” students create a how-to workbook meant to come in handy years down the road; the guide details topics like selecting mortgage rates and paying a mortgage off early. “When students walk out of the class at the end of the semester, I hope they say, ‘That was the most relevant, practical class that I’ve ever taken, and I’m going to use it,’” Slade states.
Outside of the classroom, Slade and Troy Carpenter, an associate professor of finance at BYU Marriott, are in their fifth year of hosting the BYU Global Real Estate Conference. Professionals travel from around the world to attend, coming from New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and London. Slade recalls a colleague’s estimation that the attendees at last year’s conference oversaw a trillion dollars’ worth of real estate investments.
But Slade’s favorite conference attendees are actually his former students. He says that running into former students is one of the best parts of his academic career: “It is very gratifying to see the successes of students I helped get started.”
He recognizes that no measure of material success can equal the fulfillment that comes from watching his students succeed. To Slade, “That’s what it’s all about.”
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Written by Kathryn Cragun