Walter Torous, senior lecturer in the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP) and the MIT Sloan School of Management, and director of the Master of Science in Real Estate Development Program (MSRED), was recently named executive director of the MIT Center for Real Estate (CRE) — effective July 1, 2026.
In announcing Torous’ appointment, School of Architecture and Planning Dean Hashim Sarkis also said that Justin Steil, professor of law and urban planning, will represent CRE as faculty chair of the Academic Curriculum Council.
“Together, Walter and Justin will guide CRE’s academic and strategic direction as it continues to strengthen its role within our school and the Institute,” Sarkis said. “Their appointments reflect the center’s distinctive position at the intersection of finance, design, planning, technology, and public policy — and its long-standing commitment to understanding real estate not only as a market force, but also as a driver of urban transformation and social change.”
As executive director, Torous will lead the CRE’s teaching, consortium activities, fundraising, and major events, while continuing to direct the MSRED program. He will also oversee the center’s staff, budget, and strategic direction, and work closely with Steil on the continuing evolution of CRE’s academic programs and industry engagement.
His appointment as executive director follows the tenure of STL Champion Professor Siqi Zheng, who served as CRE faculty director from July 2020 to June 2026.
Before coming to MIT in 2013, Torous was a professor at the Anderson School of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles and founding director of its Ziman Center for Real Estate. In addition to those positions, he also has held faculty appointments at the University of Michigan and the London Business School.
“Since joining MIT, Walter has played an important role in the growth and development of the MSRED program, educating generations of students in real estate finance and mortgage securitization,” Sarkis says.
“Real estate, both commercial and residential, is undergoing a tremendous change in the U.S., as well as in Europe and Asia,” Torous says. “Demographic changes, as an aging population stays longer in their homes, are creating an imbalance in residential real estate markets. New technologies and work from home are buffeting commercial real estate. Retail is changing. We’re in a period of turmoil, and I view the center’s role as being primarily to educate the next generation of leaders, especially in technology and financial markets, which are becoming ever more important to the functioning of real estate assets and markets. That requires that we train our students to be very facile with technology, so that they’re not affected by the ebbs and flows of changes, can maintain a strong career trajectory, and be stewards of the real estate industry going forward.”
For this reason, he would like to see the MSRED curriculum expand beyond DUSP to add more content from architecture, civil and environmental engineering, the Media Lab, MIT Sloan, and other areas of the Institute.
Torous also wants to more fully engage the 1,200-plus alumni from the center’s 43 years educating graduate students.
“A lot of our alums have assumed important positions in the real estate industry around the world,” he says. “In terms of training the next generation of real estate leaders, there’s a lot that we can learn from the industry leaders we’ve already produced.”
An economist and expert in the financial aspects of real estate known for his empirical studies of derivatives, options, mortgages, and other debt instruments, Torous’ research interests include the reorganization of financially distressed firms and statistical issues in finance.
His recent research has focused on better understanding why homeowners default on their mortgages. He is also interested in the application of machine learning to investigate how the dynamics of the U.S. commercial office market changed with the Covid-19 pandemic, and the lessons developers can learn about the new office market landscape. This research reflects the growing importance of AI and large language models to every aspect of real estate decision-making. Because of this, the MSRED curriculum now includes a class on AI and real estate, and Torous and Steil plan to add other, similar offerings.
“It’s important going forward that we focus on all aspects of real estate,” he says. “I look forward to working with Justin to create a curriculum that goes across the Institute and that will prepare CRE students to be leaders in the field.”