Introduction to Real Estate

• Explore careers and responsibilities across the real-estate industry

• Practice completing introductory real-estate contracts

• Distinguish property features from customer benefits

• Develop and rehearse a real-estate sales pitch

• Role-play steps involved in selling a home

• Complete a home-sale or apartment-management capstone

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Explain major real-estate roles and professional responsibilities

• Apply introductory contract and sales concepts to a property scenario

• Develop and present a plan to sell a home or manage an apartment complex

Students leave with a completed real-estate capstone and a clearer understanding of sales, leasing, property management, and industry careers.

Real estate decisions combine contracts, communication, market knowledge, operations, and financial consequences. Students learn that presenting a property involves more than describing it. Professionals must understand client needs, explain terms, manage documents, and follow a process.

The capstone also builds project management sklls. Students divide responsibilities, organize information, practice a pitch, and present a complete scenario. These skills support business, finance, law, urban studies, hospitality, sales, and other fields where assets and relationships must be managed carefully. Together, these skills strengthen careful reasoning, responsible professional judgment, and the ability to revise a conclusion when new evidence changes the picture.

This course is for high school students who have completed 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade and are interested in real estate, business, finance, sales, property management, or how housing can function as an asset. It fits students who want to explore the daily work behind transactions and operations.

Participants should be ready to work with contracts, practice client-facing communication, collaborate on a scenario, and present a final project. Organization, curiosity, and willingness to role-play professional decisions will support success.

Based on students surveyed in Summer Discovery’s 2026 program at the University of Michigan.

Programs on the University of Michigan campus give high-school students the experience of exploring an academic interest in Ann Arbor, a college town where campus and community life blend together. Tree-lined streets, downtown bookstores and cafés, the Nichols Arboretum, and trails near the Huron River create different ways to experience the setting beyond class.

Students learn alongside peers, navigate a large and active campus, and gain independence through everyday choices in a new environment. The experience helps students understand what university life can feel like while giving them space to deepen an interest without having every next step decided. For families, the program offers a meaningful combination of academic depth, community, personal growth, and clearer direction about what a student may want to study or pursue next.

Real-estate agents, leasing managers, property managers, developers, analysts, lenders, and attorneys contribute to different parts of a transaction or property’s operation. Their work may involve contracts, marketing, client service, budgeting, compliance, and ongoing asset decisions.

Students sample agent and property-management roles through contract practice, sales exercises, career research, and a choice-based capstone. The experience provides a practical introduction to real estate, sales, property operations, business, finance, and related legal work. The work also shows how specialists collaborate across roles and communicate important evidence-based decisions to colleagues, clients, organizations, or the public in complex professional settings.