New York City – vibrating, colourful and always busy. This years study trip took us to New York City. The group of participants consisted of graduates and students from our real estate programs, RICS-members and one student from our program Renewable Engery Systems. This field trip was a first time partnership between our university and the Long Island University. The main focus of our lectures and excursions dealt with Leadership & Real Estate Market.

Our trip started with a welcome reception at the Austrian Chamber of Commerce where we got an interesting overview over the real estate market situation in New York, brought to us by Michael Frield, the Austrian Trade Commissioner in New York.

The next day started with a heartly welcome at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University. Our host, Rob Valli, introduced us to the campus and lecturers. Lectures started directly after breakfast and dealt with interesting leadership topics such as: what are the best decision making strategies? Do group decisions excel individual decisions and how can companies deal with the increasing rate of digitalization in their daily business?

Participants where not only impressed by the content but also by the very interactive manner of teaching  - mainly workshops and group discussions where the used tools to work on the topics at hand.

The group especially worshipped the company insights. We visited Hollwich Kushner where principal Matthias Hollwich introduced us to some of their remarkable developments, such as 25 Kent. We visited 25 Kent in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the following day and where impressed by the inspirational project and great view. The Austrian Cultural Forum, housed in a very extraordinary building, designed by Raimund Abraham, was another highlight. Due to its very narrow fasade (7,5m) new approaches had to be found during the development and construction of the building.

Together with RICS Austria we could manage to get further company insights at Engel & Völkers and Colliers International.  We got some deeper insights into the real estate market in New York and learned about the very sensational deal in Chelsea Market, where Google bought the building for a very high price earlier this year.

On our last day, we got the opportunity to visit another upcoming project near Hudson River. Hudson Yards is said to be the next hotspot in New York and is under construction at the moment. Several residential and retail buildings will form a unique space in the urban area near the river.

As one says - New York is "the city that never sleeps“. Due to continuous changes in the urban area and changing demands of the society, there are always new challenges coming up for the market, offering changes and risks to the same extent.