A Change of Heart Leads to a Successful Real Estate Career
Open the image full screen.A single grade can change everything.
For Bharat Madan (‘14, finance), that moment came during the fourth year of a five-year program at SDSU’s Fowler College of Business, where he was on track to pursue a career in accounting and meet the requirements for the CPA exam.
“I received a D in my final audit class,” said Madan, who was simultaneously pursuing a real estate minor. “This would have required me to retake the class, but it also forced me to rethink my career path.”
What could have been a setback instead became a catalyst, leading him to switch his real estate minor to his major, and step into a network of faculty and alumni that would ultimately shape his career. “All the upper division real estate classes were taught by real estate professionals who maintained a role in the industry while teaching at SDSU,” he noted. “This real-time industry connectivity helped prepare me for my career better than those who graduated from other universities.”
The Value of Building a Network
After completing his bachelor’s degree in December of 2014, Madan reached out to a member of his network, SDSU alumnus Scott McClave (’86), who offered him a six-month internship at the Bascom Group, a large real estate investment firm. Shortly into his internship, he got a call from another SDSU alumnus, Tim Wright (’86. MBA), then a board member of SDSU’s Corky McMillin Center for Real Estate (Wright now heads the center).
Wright was also the managing director of the San Diego branch of HFF (now JLL), a commercial real estate and investment firm, and he was looking for a recent SDSU real estate graduate to fill an analyst position within his organization. Wright got Madan’s contact information from a Fowler real estate lecturer who was a mutual connection.
Wright eventually offered Madan the position in 2015 and the two have worked together ever since, with Madan rising to the position of Vice President of Debt and Equity in 2022 — only 6 ½ years after he started.
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Giving Back to SDSU
Like Wright, Madan has also maintained his ties to SDSU’s Fowler College of Business and the Corky McMillin Center for Real Estate: He is a student mentor, and an associate board member for the center. Additionally, Madan heads up the Accredited Analyst Program (AAP), a 4-week certificate program offered to SDSU real estate students through the center.
“The program is taught with a 10-key calculator, pencil and paper, with no computers or technology permitted,” said Madan. “The goal is to give students the mental math required to critically think about real estate fundamentals. Secondarily, we want to elevate our students in the marketplace as true critical thinkers in the face of the AI revolution which is actively occurring in the real estate analytical space.”
Technology Holds the Key
But while Madan doesn’t allow technology in his classroom, he does advise that his students embrace the use of technology for those who want to embrace real estate as a career. “There is a lot of information inefficiencies in the real estate industry, so those with firsthand knowledge and the ability to accurately analyze available information become valuable players,” he said. “Artificial intelligence will reduce some of the information gaps, but there will always be inefficiencies. Those who know how to use technology to make productive decisions will emerge as real estate industry leaders.”
