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What’s New with Robert Simons &
Associates, Inc. The year 2010/11 included a lot of moving and
traveling. We lived in
Israel for a year and traveled to Africa, Europe and throughout the
middle east. Roby taught
Real Estate part-time at the Technion University in Haifa, Israel.
He is now the President of the American Real Estate Society
(ARES). As the president,
Roby represents ARES at the sister organizations and attended academic
conferences in Holland, Dubai, and Kenya.
We finished a manuscript on the rehabilitation of religious
buildings, primarily churches.
We are still working with the publisher (KSU Press) on the
release of this book. Now
Roby is back teaching at Cleveland State University (CSU).
In addition to his real estate classes he added Mega Cities of
Asia to his teaching repertoire.
All our traveling has paid off in terms of real life experiences
for CSU students. Travel Living in Israel was a great opportunity to
travel a large portion of the world in one time zone.
In addition to attending conferences, we traveled to research how
land rights and land claim issues are handled throughout the world.
The first academic conference was in Dubai.
The conference was hosted by the Middle East and Northern African
Real Estate Society (MENARES).
This is a new organization and this was their first meeting.
Roby presented a paper on emerging trends in real estate finance. Kenya was the location of the 10th African Real
Estate Society (AfRES) meeting.
There we had the opportunity to meet with scholars from all over
Africa. This is a unique
time in African history.
There are some very bright dedicated scholars dealing with many
difficult economic, cultural and political problems in their respective
countries. Tribal land claim
issues were the subject of many talks and lectures.
Roby also guest lectured students at the University of Nairobi in
Kenya. We were impressed
with the students’ respect for learning. We went to Yerevan, Armenia for a discussion with
local NGOs on land rights and claims concerning the Ngorno-Karabakh
region. Armenia is a country
with border disputes with Turkey and Azerbaijan.
While we did not go to Armenia with any preconceived notions, we
found the country to be full of beautiful people with a fascinating
history. Yerevan has very
nice USSR-era public spaces.
The architecture and culture in Armenia are with worth a visit to this
interesting place. While living in the middle east, who could miss
the opportunity to visit friends in Cairo and Alexandria, and the
pyramids in Egypt (just before the emergence of the ‘Arab Spring’).
We also saw the wonderful caves
of Petra, Jordan. We also traveled throughout Israel.
Israel has a culturally diverse population speaking numerous
languages. Almost all
religions have a historical connection to Israel.
We visited ancient and current religious sites for Jews, Muslims,
Christians, Baha’i, Druze, and the
Ahmadiyya sect.
There are Buddhists and Hindus living in Israel as well.
Israel is much like early America with a large immigrant
population. As a result the
economy is booming with new ideas and hard workers.
Despite its difficulties, this is an amazing country. Roby took a quick two-week trip back to the
United States to attend to court commitments and also attend the ARES
meeting in Seattle. Aside from
administrative duties from being President-Elect at the time (now
President), Roby co-presented a paper on valuing the lost option to
control property, as a result of long term groundwater contamination. Finally, we traveled to Holland for the European
Real Estate Society (ERES) Conference in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
Side trips to visit family in Amsterdam and Zurich were a nice
benefit of being close by.
Roby presented a paper on global residential cap rates at the meeting. Latest Book and Publication Projects The
book “Turning Prophets into Profit – and other institutional
conversions” about the redevelopment of surplus churches is finished and
awaiting printing.
This book is written with two other authors,
Larry Ledebur, Ph.D. and retired urban planner Gary DeWine, as well as
some Ph.D. students at Cleveland State University.
It will be published by Kent State University Press.
Roby had five peer
reviewed publications accepted. In addition to the topics discussed in
this update, we explored the effects of Green policy on various cities
in the United States and well as the impact of school quality and the
location of religious institutions on residential property values.
These papers can be found in the “other downloads” section of the
website www.rasimons.com. Consulting and Expert Witness Assignments We worked hard to finalize all pending work
before we left for Israel.
So, with e-mail and Skype, consulting continued with little impact from
where we were sleeping at that point in time.
With the company’s two employees in Cleveland, site visits were
conducted and data transmitted digitally across the world.
Business is picking up with us back in the United States.
The economy has hit our clients hard with their credit lines
being limited. Most of the RS&A, Inc.’s consulting is involved
with the calculation of property value loss related to environmental
contamination. Over the past
dozen years we have had more than 60 cases, 30 depositions and 8 trials
and/or in-court sessions. We also recently were involved in a commercial
property land loss case where we used options modeling to model the loss
of control of property development rights. We had a peer-reviewed
article accepted for publication on this topic (forthcoming 2012). We
also had the ”Big Matrix” (from the 2006 book) admitted for testimony at
trial. We have also been involved with property value
loss related to mining operations, landfills and explosions.
We have also been involved in mold and flooding litigation cases.
We have a published paper on the effect of mold on property value
loss. In addition to our property loss work, we worked
on a mortgage lending dispute involving a NFA, and also opined on the
outlook for the concrete industry in Ohio. We performed fiscal impact
studies for a shopping mall and industrial complex.
It is great when we can use CSU students to help with these
projects. The students
(always at a master’s degree level or higher) get some real work
experience and keep us forward thinking.
This is especially true with the use of technology as much of our
work incorporates GIS. Teaching and
Research Roby taught
part-time at the Technion’s Tel Aviv campus.
He taught real estate and a special research class about Bedouin
land rights. Like his
Cleveland students, most of the Israeli students worked full while going
to school. Since Israelis
spend at least two years in the military, most students are older,
married and with children.
Their English was better than Roby’s Hebrew. Part of Roby’s
research in Israel was the study of Bedouin land rights.
He worked with three Israeli masters’ degree students and an
Indian scholar on this topic.
He also co-sponsored a seminar on this issue in Haifa with Dr.
Ruth Kark from Hebrew University.
This work was presented at ASCP in Salt Lake City in October
2011. While we were away Roby’s classes were taught by
David O’Neil and Peter Rubin.
They continued in Roby’s style of having guest lecturers who talk
about their successful and sometimes unsuccessful projects.
The students enjoy hearing about the real world, especially
Cleveland projects. These
same successful real estate practitioners in Cleveland, Ohio, donate
their time to help mentor students in real estate paper competitions
(where students compete for cash prizes).
As always the greatest gift you can give someone is the ability
to make a living Latest News Dr. Simons Presents 2010 Economic Forecast On January 12, 2010, Dr. Simons presented his 2010 Economic Forecast to the Greater Cleveland Mortgage Brokers Association. See what he sees in store for the Cleveland region and Ohio this year by downloading his presentation here. Dr. Simons hosts Real Estate Market Analysis Competition Please join Dr. Simons and Mr. David O'Neill to evaluate and recognize the top five market analysis case studies selected from 25 graduate students in the PDD 610/710 Real Estate Development Process/Market Analysis class. Dr. Simons presents the Halachic Origins of Real Estate On October 23, 2007, Dr. Robert Simons hosted his latest event in his Halachic Origins of Real Estate series. With some of Cleveland's leading real estate professionals providing insights from scripture and comments on its current applicability, the event examined the roots of real estate acquisition, possession, transactions, and disclosure. Panelists included Rabbi Ephraim Nisenbaum, Jewish Learning Connection; Mr. Mitchell Schneider, Esq., First Interstate Properties; Mr. David O'Neill, Colliers OM; Mr. Bruce Cweiber, Esq., Precision Title, Cleveland Bet Din; and, Mr. Morton Levin, Esq., The Levin Group. Dr. Simons served as the moderator of the event. Please check back for information about future events in the Halachic Origins of Real Estate series.
Dr. Simons Ranked 30th Amongst All Real Estate Academics The Journal of Real Estate Research, one of the top three academic real estate journals, has ranked Dr. Robert Simons 30th amongst all professors in the United States that publish academic articles in the real estate area. In a study entitled, “Contributions to the Journal of Real Estate Research: The First Twenty Years,” the journal tallied the academic contributions of professors over a twenty-year period to commemorate its 20th anniversary. Update from Spring 2007 2006 and the first part of 2007 have treated us well. We are involved in a number of new projects and new directions. Some of these new directions will be transformed into books, others scholarly papers and conference presentations. Consulting has included expert witness work in environmental damages, as well as several housing policy cases and an eminent domain case. Teaching is always an opportunity to learn new things, and interact with students and esteemed local practitioners. New Ph.D. graduate students come up with new ideas and questions. Latest Book and Publication Projects Our latest book, When Bad Things Happen to Good Property (published by the Environmental Law Institute), was released in summer, 2006. The most interesting feature is The Big Matrix as a fold out poster in the back. The Big Matrix allows the reader to roughly estimate property loss by type and extent of contamination and property type. The book has chapters written by both defense and plaintiff attorneys. I have been able to recommend the book instead of expert witness services for smaller claims. Several hundred copies have been sold so far. Consulting and Expert Witness Assignments Consulting this past year has been expanding, and we have hired a new associate, James Amendola, to complement Senior Associate Pitt Curtiss. Both Pitt and James have Masters in Urban Planning from CSU. Donna Simons continues to run the office and manage cash flow. University Activities Roby has two additional Ph.D. candidates working with him right now – Youngme Seo and Eugene Choi. Youngme’s dissertation topic is likely to be the impact of school quality on economic development. This has led to some fascinating reading on school quality the impact on a community’s property values. Eugene’s topic is related to housing supply.
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