Awesome class.
- Tests are tough, but provided study materials/reviews will prepare you well.
- Lots of information that will be directly applicable later in life
- Lectures are focused and useful (coming from engineering, I'm not used to that), and he tells interesting stories from his experience relevant to the concepts

I will be honest, yet again Bruinwalk failed me. This class was hyped up for me to only be dreadful every time I go to class. I pay attention in class because I feel disrespectful if I don't pay attention, BUT this class is boring. Professor Karlan is a very liked individual that can make lectures exciting but I can't bear to sit in a class and have his chapter notes pulled up knowing that it all comes down to whatever he says and whatever i jot down to see if I got the information needed that will be on the exams. I will say, I took this class because I was expecting an easy class but you must put in effort into this class to pass, such as, check the book for terms that do not make sense, attend the review sessions, complete the practice exams even though they are minorly helpful, and ask questions. Regardless, take this class if you simply want to learn about real estate but mainly if you want to sit in class for 80 minutes waiting for you to leave class. Do not recommend if you are a senior who is looking for easy classes, OR if you think this real estate classes will cover a lot of real estate topics and interest you.

prof. karlan is a real estate professional and it shows. he has a lot of industry experience and i enjoyed hearing his stories, deals he'd made, and take on current market trends. the topics in this class are very applicable for people that want to go into the industry (and honestly just pretty interesting in general in my opinion). i liked the structure of lectures, which often went discussion of key terms/topics --> news article or personal experience he had with said topic --> clicker/participation question. that being said, even though i got an A in the class, i disliked how heavy an emphasis he put on learning the financial calculations and real estate computations. if you memorize how to use the 4 excel spreadsheets he gives you, you know how to do half of the problems of his tests already without using your brain.

So I am an engineering major taking this for the tech breadth requirement. I didn't know anything about real estate or used excel spreadsheets before. There is no homework in the class and no discussions, but he does have clicker questions for participation. All you have to do for this class is pay attention to lecture. Although that sounds easy, sometimes, especially when he's just going through definitions and talking about rules or taxes, it's really boring. However he also talks about his own experiences/old stories which I thought were super interesting and fun to listen to. The midterm and final can be stressful because I wasn't sure what to expect, but he releases practice midterms and finals which are extremely helpful to understand what the questions will be like and what to prepare for. But really, all you have to do is pay attention to lecture, take really good notes, and follow along when he's going through his excel spreadsheets because you will need to know what numbers to plug in and which formulas to use to solve some problems in the exams. It's necessary to study even though they are open notes exams because they are such a time crunch, especially the midterm. Also, do not waste your time doing the recommended problems from the book. They are nothing like the exam questions. I would take this class again, and pay better attention to his lectures because I ended up having to rewatch a lot of the parts I zoned out on when cramming for exams.

The lecture material was phenomenal. We should be grateful we get someone as prestigious as Prof. Karlan as a lecturer at UCLA. He has a wide breadth of experience and is pretty modest regarding his accolades.

That said, he won't be of any help outside of lecture. I tried to reach out to speak with him, only to quickly get rejected. Apparently he's a busy man.

What's strange is the lectures don't really prepare you for the exams. The midterm and final are almost entirely Excel based, which we covered very little in class. So to do well on them you need to be comfortable running calculations on provided calculators. It seemed like the business students who have taken classes using Excel, well, excelled, and the others did okay.

Karlan is a very interesting and experienced professor. Dude knows real estate like no other and has some great stories to share. As a finance/econ person, this class was not too challenging as a lot of the concepts/terms were simple review from other courses. The grade is only from a midterm and final, although I found it helpful to skim through the textbook readings and practice problems he assigns. I do understand a lot of students are coming from not econ backgrounds so maybe take my opinion with a grain of salt but overall I found this class to be light in terms of workload and test difficulty. Beyond your grade in this class, a lot of the information surrounding buying a home or investment property covered in 170 that you will learn in this class will be very helpful/useful for those who imagine themselves purchasing a home or investing in real estate in the future.

I believe the curve this quarter was a bit harsher than previous from what I garnered with other people, but this guy is definitely one of the most engaging professors I've had so far. Super knowledgeable about his stuff and shares a lot about his real experience with the class when we review important key concepts. Quite the entertaining guy and brings in a lot of relevant commentary about current housing markets, state of domestic investments, etc.

Breakdown:
-Participation portion part of grade is mandatory, attend his lectures and just do the iclicker questions for credit. he doesn't care if responses are right or wrong.
-Grade is most entirely exam based where midterm and final cover usually 80-90% of overall historically. However, if you do the 2-3 hour review session with the ta, understand all the key concepts in his always updated 1 page per chapter notes, and know how to work basic spreadsheets to emulate certain formulas, then exams aren't difficult at all. FWIW, exams are entirely mc.

Would definitely take again for credit, not a totally easy class but not hard at all if you do some amount of exam prep.

I took this class as part of my Tech Breadth (technology management), and would highly recommend that any engineering who is in the same boat as me take this as well. 85% of your grade is based on tests (a final and a single midterm) which can be pretty easily studied for. There is NO homework for this class, but the optional problem sets he gives out can be helpful for judging your own knowledge (you don't turn them in though). For the exams, make sure you know how to use each of the spreadsheets, which you can test yourself on via the practice tests. DO THE PRACTICE TESTS, and also go to the review sessions. They are the best help you can get for this class, and more worth it than any other way of studying.
Tests are open note, and I'd recommend putting each vocabulary document into a Google Doc so you can easily find any terms or formulas. Learn how to use the spreadsheets as well before the tests. Lectures are extremely engaging and are basically him going through real-world experience that he's had. You'll learn a lot more than he tests you on if you pay attention to them.
Lectures do not have attendance taken, but they do have PollEv questions which count for 15% of your grade (you just need to answer them to get participation credit). Apparently this varies by quarter, but the time I took it, you could also attend via zoom, and do the PollEv questions, getting credit for that Lecture. Overall, would recommend!!!

I think this was a really good class and I'm glad I took it. I actually think this class is harder than people in the other reviews make it out to be, especially post covid. I thought his exams were pretty challenging and require studying and practice for sure. An A will not come easy, most of my friends got A- despite putting in a good amount of effort. His exams are open textbook and open notes on the computer so maybe people cheated but I'm not sure. Overall, Professor Karlan is a great lecturer and extremely knowledgable. He's one of the professors I respect a lot at UCLA and I would recommend this class.

This class is a cakewalk. There's no HW. The professor highlights the concepts that are important in class. The tests are open book/open notes. If you study the key concepts, do the test review he releases, understand how to use the excel spreadsheets, and go over the chapter questions (not the problems he assigns, just the explanation questions at the start of each chapter) you'll ace the tests. You can put a minimal amount of work and do great. Plus the class is relevant and interesting. Would recommend.