About

Professor David Geltner has been at MIT since 2002, where he holds the George Macomber Chair and is a Professor of Real Estate Finance in the Department of Urban Studies & Planning. He served as the Academic Director of the MIT Center for Real Estate from 2003 to 2008 and was the faculty chair of MIT’s Master of Science in Real Estate Development (MSRED) program from 2008 to 2014. Geltner is the lead author of the widely-cited textbook 'Commercial Real Estate Analysis & Investments,' now in its third edition, and has received the U.S. Pension Real Estate Association’s Graaskamp Award in 2011 for excellence and influence in real estate investment research. His work includes serving as an Academic Advisor to the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF) and directing MIT’s Commercial Real Estate Data Laboratory, which has developed pioneering commercial property price and investment performance indices based on transaction prices. Prior to his tenure at MIT, Geltner was the REEAC Professor of Real Estate at the University of Cincinnati, where he taught graduate-level real estate investments and finance since 1989. He earned his PhD from MIT in 1989 in the Civil Engineering Department, specializing in infrastructure finance and economics, and holds degrees in urban studies from Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Michigan.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Finance
• Economics
• Financial economics
• Microeconomics
• Econometrics
• Business
• Monetary economics

Selected publications

• Commercial Real Estate Analysis for Investment, Finance, and Development

  Research Publications (Maastricht University) · 2026-01-01

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Commercial Real Estate Analysis for Investment, Finance and Development, a fully revised fourth edition of the authors’ leading textbook, presents the foundations of real estate investment analysis with the rigor of general finance and economics. This book introduces the essential building blocks of the field: market assumptions, valuation, financial analysis, and development. Drawing from extensive academic and industry experience, the authors approach the investment analysis process using a combination of theory and practical tools in a discussion tailored to advanced students. Topics include value concepts, mortgage analysis, financing alternatives, option value, leverage and risk analysis, as well as institutional and capital market trends. Additionally, the new edition addresses climate risks, alternative property types, and the impact of technology on real estate as an asset class. New supplemental online resources complement the book’s conceptual and quantitative study questions, chapter summaries, and other useful pedagogical features. Combining a practical grounding in economics and finance with updated tools and resources, this edition of Commercial Real Estate Analysis for Investment, Finance and Development provides a new generation of professionals the foundation and tools they need to excel as investment managers, advisers, and analysts. Ideal for graduate studies in real estate, finance, and business, this textbook prepares students for the real-world complexities and challenges of commercial real estate.For access to additional, online chapters and other Instructor and Student Resources, please visit: www.routledge.com/cw/geltner-miller

  PublisherDOI

• William C. Wheaton (1944–)

  2025-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• How Property Rents and Expenses Depreciate: A Case of Tokyo Office Properties

  Journal of Real Estate Research · 2024-07-02 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  This is the first comprehensive study on the age profile of new rents, average rents, operating expenses, net operating income, capital expenditure, and net cash flow for office properties in Tokyo. There are four main findings. First, the rate of rental depreciation in Japan is low and explains less than half of the rate of depreciation of property prices, although it is higher in earlier years. Second, average rents exhibit nominal rigidity. Third, approximately half of the observed depreciation in new rents is due to physical deterioration as opposed to functional obsolescence, which is driven by changes in tenant preferences and advances in building technology. Last, operating expenses are independent of age, whereas capital expenditure increases in the first 20 years. Our study contributes to the literature by estimating depreciation rates for commercial real estate rents, costs, and cash flows, with new insights into the detailed age profile and sources of economic depreciation.

  PublisherDOI

• How Property Rents and Expenses Depreciate: A Case of Tokyo Office Properties

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Estimating Commercial Property Fundamentals from REIT data

  The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics · 2023-10-02

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Is There Super-Normal Profit in Real Estate Development?*

  Journal of Real Estate Research · 2022-07-11 · 11 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper explores the question of whether real estate development (RED) projects systematically present positive net present value (NPV) and therefore, provide super-normal profit. Such projects are the products of a business operation that governs the exercise of the real call option on development that is represented by developable land. We present a framework for considering super-normal profit in the RED industry, and then in light of that framework we examine RED projects produced by publicly-traded equity real estate investment trusts (REITs). We find strong evidence of positive correlation between REITs’ Tobin-Q ratios, indicative of positive NPV, and the ratio of development assets to total assets in the firm, controlling for other factors. The nature of the firm’s Tobin’s-Q metric is such that the implied added firm value is net of land cost and net of overhead and search costs associated with the RED business operation. While our findings do not prove a direction of causality between REITs’ RED activity and positive NPV, the robust positive correlation controlling for other factors raises interesting implications which are discussed in the paper.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Forecasting US Commercial Property Price Indexes Using Dynamic Factor Models

  Journal of Real Estate Research · 2021-12-09 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The general purpose of a dynamic factor model (DFM) is to summarize a large number of time series into a few common factors. In this paper we explore several DFMs on 80 granular, non-overlapping commercial property price indexes in the US, quarterly from 2001Q1 to 2017Q2. We examine the nature and the structure of the factors and the index forecasts that can be produced from the DFMs. We consider specifications of one to four common factors. As a major motivation for the use of DFMs is their ability to improve out-of-sample forecasting of systems of numerous related series, we apply the DFM estimated factors in an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to forecast individual market index returns. We compare for four markets the forecasts to those from a benchmark univariate autoregression. The results show that the DFM & ARDL model predicts the crisis and subsequent recovery really well, whereas the benchmark model typically extrapolates the past price trend.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Estimating Market Fundamentals from REIT data

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Dynamics of Liquidity in Commercial Property Markets: Revisiting Supply and Demand Indexes in Real Estate

  The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics · 2020 · 31 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Economics
  • Financial economics
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Recent Drops in Market Liquidity May Foreshadow Major Drops in US Commerical Real Estate Markets

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2020 · 20 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Monetary economics
  • Business
  • Economics
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Blas Frangione

  30 shared

• E. C. Franklin

  26 shared

• Hagen Bretting

  Universität Hamburg

  25 shared

• M E Koshland

  New York University

  25 shared

• J Shyong

  25 shared

• Elvin A. Kabat

  25 shared

• Jingqiu Liao

  25 shared

• Richard de Neufville

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  17 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Infrastructure finance & economics

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  1989

• M.S., Urban studies

  Carnegie-Mellon University

• B.A., Urban studies

  University of Michigan

Awards & honors

• Graaskamp Award (2011)