Students wishing to declare the Urban Studies Real Estate minor must first meet with URBS Co-Director Dr. Julia McWilliams, to discuss their planned course of study: calendly.com/mcjulia-upenn.
Prior to the meeting, please familiarize yourself with the information below. After the meeting, you may then fill out the “Declare/Update Field of Study Form” to officially declare the minor, which can be accessed through Path Forms.
Please note that being an URBS Real Estate minor does not guarantee entry into any Wharton Real Estate courses.
Because of enrollment priorities set by Wharton's Real Estate Department, seats are extremely limited for non-Wharton students. Their office recommends that you do not email anyone about your entry into any of their courses. You must request a permit through the Path@Penn registration system to get on a waiting list. We've added more Urban Studies options, and relevant courses in the Department of City and Regional Planning, in order to offset the difficulty of getting a seat in REAL classes.
The Urban Real Estate and Development minor consists of seven courses as specified below:
Two Urban Studies core courses, from this list:
URBS Core courses (2 CUs):
URBS/HIST 1153 The Transformation of Urban America
URBS 2040 Urban Law
URBS 4500 Urban Redevelopment
URBS 4760 Urban Housing and Urban Development Policy in America
Two Urban Studies elective courses, from this list:
URBS Elective Courses (2 CUs):
URBS 1155 Fair Housing, Segregation, and the Law
URBS 2030 Intro to City Planning: Planning Urban Spaces
URBS 2500 Urban Public Policy: Philadelphia -- A Case Study
URBS 2530 Cities, Suburbs, Regions
URBS 2900 Metropolitan Nature
URBS 4150 Urban Real Estate Markets
URBS 4400 Introduction to City Planning
URBS 4510 The Politics of Housing and Community Development
URBS 4520 Community Economic Development
Three Real Estate courses, from this list:
Real Estate Courses (3 CUs):
(Please note - Other courses may be considered only with prior approval from the Urban Studies advisor)
REAL/LGST 2040 Real Estate Law, Financing and Development
REAL 2050 Global Real Estate: Risk, Politics, and Culture
REAL 2080 Housing Markets ◊
REAL/FNCE 2090 Real Estate Investments ◊
REAL 2150 Urban Real Estate Economics
REAL/BEPP 2300 Urban Fiscal Policy, or;
ECON 4470 Urban Fiscal Policy
REAL/BEPP 2360 International Housing Comparisons
REAL 2400 Advanced Real Estate Investment and Analysis ◊
REAL 3210 Real Estate Development ◊
ARCH 7620/CPLN 6430 Design & Development
CPLN 5400 Introduction to Property Development
CPLN 6410 Progressive Development ◊
CPLN 6430 Design and Development ◊
CPLN 6420 Downtown Development ◊
◊ Wharton prerequisites
College students considering the minor must take Economics 0100 (Microeconomics) and 0200 (Macroeconomics) before any Wharton course work is undertaken. Some Wharton classes also require additional prerequisites. For example, FNCE1000 is a prerequisite for REAL2090. The prerequisites will not be waived and are not counted toward the minor.
◊ City Planning prerequisites
All City Planning (CPLN) courses require that CPLN5400 and one other URBS real estate course and have been taken first.