Metadata
Title
Degree Requirements and Curriculum
Category
graduate
UUID
ed8a2b6834ff44caa8549877b8968573
Source URL
https://cre.mit.edu/education/masters-program/degree-requirements-and-curriculum...
Parent URL
https://cre.mit.edu/special-topics-courses/
Crawl Time
2026-03-09T04:04:28+00:00
Rendered Raw Markdown

Degree Requirements and Curriculum

Source: https://cre.mit.edu/education/masters-program/degree-requirements-and-curriculum/ Parent: https://cre.mit.edu/special-topics-courses/

The Master of Science in Real Estate Development (MSRED) students must complete a set of required core courses and meet a specific number of graduate credits to complete their degree requirements.

To be eligible for their degree, MSRED students must maintain a 4.0 out of 5.0 GPA and complete six core courses and defend a thesis. In addition, students must take one to two electives per term, totaling six to eight electives during their time at MIT.

The MSRED Degree Requirements chart is a helpful guide for course planning.

Required Units*Core Courses – 54 Units\ Electives – 45 Units (24 Units from CRE Electives* list)\ Thesis – 12 Units\ Total – 111 Units**

Visit the MIT Bulletin to see individual course descriptions

Core Courses (54 Units)

Students must successfully complete the specified MSRED core courses:

*The above courses are letter graded. They cannot be taken P/F.*\ Click here for Course Descriptions

Electives & Seminars (45 Units)*

Students can choose from a variety of elective and seminar courses throughout MIT or at Harvard through the MIT/Harvard cross-registration program.

Students must take a minimum of 24 units from the MSRED Elective Course List. At least six of those 24 units must be taken in both fall and spring. The remaining 21 units can be fulfilled from the Seminars and Electives courses as well as from courses across MIT.

International students may be required to take an English course during the first semester at MIT. Please be aware of the Center for Real Estate’s MSRED EET POLICY

Fall Semester CRE Elective List***A minimum of six units from the following courses must be taken** in the fall semester.

Spring Semester CRE Elective List***A minimum of six units from the following courses must be taken** in the spring semester.

The above courses are letter graded. They cannot be taken P/F unless the course itself is structured that way.

Visit the MIT Bulletin to see individual course descriptions

Supplemental Courses (Seminars & Additional Electives)

In addition to the core courses and MSRED electives, the center offers Special Topics courses that focus on a wide variety of subjects. New courses are introduced as Special Topics to leverage faculty expertise and respond to emerging trends in the field. Special Topics courses that are offered repeatedly are often formally incorporated into the MSRED curriculum.

See current special topics courses here.

Thesis Project (12 Units)

RED.THG: Thesis (12 units)

Thesis provides students with an opportunity to integrate and apply the knowledge acquired in course work in a substantial written report, equivalent in academic load to a full course.

Students may choose to collaborate with ongoing faculty or industry-proposed research projects or to identify a topic of their own. Students must be registered when they are working on their thesis.

Theses are letter graded and cannot be taken P/F.

Thesis Seminar

Thesis seminar (course 11.499) is a core course offered each spring term. Thesis seminar describes faculty research interests and explains quantitative and qualitative research methodologies to help students explore possible thesis topics. Student thesis topics and work plans are finalized by the end of the spring term.

Thesis research — which may include interviews, statistical analysis, project evaluations, and literature reviews — and the writing of the thesis is accomplished over the summer term or following fall term.

Fieldwork

MSRED students may choose to apply their knowledge and skills with an industry internship. Internships count the experience towards their degree requirements (Fieldwork 11.929). Internships are undertaken during the summer semester, typically by those students pursuing the 16-month program option. Students are required to submit a written summary and assessment of their internship in order to receive credit for this Fieldwork course.

Additional Degree Options

Dual Degree

A student who wants to complement the MSRED with another MIT graduate degree may apply to pursue a dual degree, provided they are accepted for admission and complete degree requirements in each department or School. Learn More About the Dual Degree Application Process

Common Dual Degrees for MSRED Students

Doctor of Philosophy with Real Estate Focus

The CRE offers mentorship and support for DUSP doctoral students focused on real estate studies. The DUSP program is tailored to the needs of individual students, each of whom works closely with a custom ecosystem of scholars.  Learn more about PhD programs

Finance Concentration

There are no official concentration tracks in the MSRED program but students may take a suite of specific finance courses and complete a thesis that addresses a financial topic. This will be considered to complete a finance concentration within the MSRED program.

Students should plan to take 4 of the following courses:

11.353 Mortgage Securitization

11.351 Real Estate Ventures I

11.352 Real Estate ventures 2

11.355 International Housing, Finance, + Economics

15.401 Managerial Finance

15.402 Coporate Finance

15.433 Investments

15.343 Advanced Corporate Finance