President's Letter | Winter 2025Welcome back to another year of exciting AREUEA activities. As the new President, I look forward to working with all of you to keep the organization relevant, active, and vibrant. For many of us, AREUEA has made a very positive contribution to our careers: may our collective efforts be devoted to keeping the organization as a positive resource for all researchers and academics studying and teaching urban economics and real estate! The number of paper submissions to AREUEA conferences continues to grow, with a total of 232 submissions to the National Conference and 226 to the ASSA. The strong interest from researchers led us to increase the number of sessions in the 2024 National Conference by five, thus accommodating an additional twenty papers (for a total of 92). Our Junior Scholar Program (JSP) at the National Meeting continued with great success. The JSP sessions featured special presentations of papers by recent Ph.Ds. or advanced graduate students, who were also paired with mentors to help them advance their careers. This year, we sent JSP submissions that were not selected for the JSP sessions to the general conference pool. In total, 29 papers from the JSP submission pool were accepted for the May conference, and 28 were presented: 12 in the JSP sessions and another 16 in the regular sessions. The acceptance rate for JSP submitters was significantly higher (53%) than for regular session submitters (35%). Special thanks to Ruchi Singh and the members of the Mentoring Committee for their tireless efforts. The Pipeline Scholar Program (PSP), which guides qualified, deserving college students from underrepresented backgrounds into research careers in real estate and urban economics, was a resounding success. Many of you had the opportunity to meet and interact with these promising young minds. Thanks go to Luis Lopez and members of the PSP committee. We will continue to need the help of all AREUEA members to reach out to your networks to promote this program and help us identify suitable candidates in 2025 and beyond. Also during the National Conference, Nancy Wallace, Professor of Real Estate and Capital Markets at the University of California at Berkeley, received the 2024 John M. Quigley Medal and delivered a prescient keynote address on "The Wildfire Risk of California Residential Real Estate: Measurement, Property Insurance, and Mitigation Strategies." The May conference also featured a policy session on "Families, children, and economic mobility in cities.” Our international conferences in Curaçao and Taiwan were well-attended, rigorous, and fun, providing opportunities for AREUEA scholars to interact with each other and with researchers and practitioners from around the world. This year's international conference in arguably the coolest city in the world (and my hometown!), Barcelona, Spain, promises to be one for the ages. Please submit your papers for consideration by the March 3 deadline. Similarly, do not forget to prepare your papers for submission to the 2026 ASSA-AREUEA conference in beautiful and historic Philadelphia. The submission deadline will be April 1, 2025. Our first meeting this year in San Francisco was also very fruitful. Thanks to our First Vice President, Siqi Zheng, and the conference Scientific Committee for an outstanding AREUEA-ASSA program, and thanks to all who participated in the sessions and activities. The 2025 AREUEA-ASSA Conference kicked off on Thursday with our Doctoral Poster Session. Fifteen promising scholars in real estate and urban economics presented their work, with plenty of opportunity for everyone to mingle and learn from each other. A special thanks goes out to all the senior researchers who came out to support our junior colleagues. This was great fun and a fantastic opportunity to catch up with many friends: I encourage all members to attend these sessions in future iterations. The AREUEA Presidential Luncheon, held on January 4, 2025, culminated with the Presidential Address delivered by Xudong An. Xudong has been an excellent steward of AREUEA over the past year, and we all look forward to his continued service on the Board for the next three years. The President's address provided a master class in the economic and financial impact of climate change on real estate assets. A paper based on Xudong’s presentation will be soon appearing at Real Estate Economics. Outgoing board members were also recognized for their contributions, including James Conklin of the University of Georgia, Yuming Fu of the National University of Singapore, Kris Gerardi of the Atlanta Fed, Karen Pence of the Federal Reserve Board, and Chris Redfearn of USC.I was pleased to introduce the new officers and board members, with Lu Han of the University of Wisconsin as Second Vice President. The new incoming board members are Steve Billings from the University of Colorado-Boulder, Sonia Gilbukh from CUNY, Kyle Mangum from the Philadelphia Fed, and Tess Scharlemann from the Federal Reserve Board. The John M. Quigley Medal for Advancing Real Estate and Urban Economics was deservedly awarded to Edward L. Glaeser. Yongheng Deng of the University of Wisconsin received the George Bloom Service Award for his tireless dedication and hard work on behalf of AREUEA. The Hoyt Doctoral Dissertation Award was presented to Allison Lodermeier (Ph.D., Brown University) for her work on racial discrimination in eviction filings, Honorable mentions were also given to: Jeanna Kenny (University of Pennsylvania), JoonYup Park (Duke University), and Hoyoung Yoo (University of Wisconsin). The John Clapp Best Poster Award was awarded to Victoria Wang for "Migration as Climate Adaptation: Evidence from California Wildfires," with honorable mentions to Ignacio Aravena and Noah Kouchekinia. Thanks to Jeffrey Lin and the member of the awards committees for their work. Lu Han, on behalf of the Real Estate Economics Editorial Board, presented the Best Referee Award to Alex Van De Minne from the University of Connecticut. The Edwin Mills Best Paper Award went to "Climate Change and Commercial Real Estate: Evidence from Hurricane Sandy," authored by Jawad Addoum, Piet Eichholtz, Eva Steiner, and Erkan Yonder. As Lu steps down from her role at Real Estate Economics, Paul Carrillo of George Washington University has been announced as the new editor: thank you both! I am confident that REE will continue to be a top journal in economics and finance: please continue to send your best work to REE, cite its articles, and serve as referees. We are all looking forward to the AREUEA 2025 National Conference in Washington D.C. As a distinctive feature, it will include REE Special Issue Sessions focusing on Housing and Housing Policy, edited by Ingrid Ellen. Thanks to the many of you who have volunteered to serve on AREUEA committees, conference programs, as discussants, and as session chairs. We will soon be sending out a call for volunteers for next year to participate in AREUEA's activities, committees, journal, and governance. Your work on behalf of AREUEA is the lifeblood that keeps the organization going! I look forward to working with all of you to improve and strengthen the valuable services that AREUEA provides to the profession and especially to its more junior members. As we do so much, my job in 2025 is to keep the ship steady and to strengthen the administrative and financial foundations of the organization. To that end, Jeffrey Lin has graciously volunteered to act as a "czar" to coordinate all of the junior programs (JSP, PSP, Doctoral Awards, and Doctoral Panel). I also plan to work on hiring a graduate student to strengthen our administrative and outreach capabilities. We will redouble our efforts to increase our membership base, streamline operations, further improve our website, create and manage an internal document database, and strengthen the output of our communication channels. Your help in these efforts is needed and appreciated. Best wishes for a fruitful and engaging 2025. Albert Saiz
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