Real estate paper earns Best-in-Track award for Radford University finance faculty

Radford University Davis College of Business and Economics faculty members Feifei Zhu, Ph.D., and Clarence Rose, Ph.D., received the Best-in-Track Award for Real Estate from the 2020 Academy of Finance Conference.

Zhu, an associate professor of finance, and Rose, professor emeritus of finance, earned the award for a paper they submitted for the conference: “The Impact of Financial Leverage on the Home Buyer’s Investment Returns.”

“It is really a pleasure to work with Dr. Rose to have this paper done,” Zhu said. “It was a great honor for both of us since there are many excellent papers accepted by the Academy of Finance 2020 Conference.”

The paper examines the impact of financial leverage on the home buyer’s investment returns when using various loan-to-value ratios.

“Under current real estate market conditions,” Zhu and Rose write, “prospective home buyers who plan to live in the home for at least three years should carefully consider the use of lower-down-payment home mortgage financing options in order to purchase a home sooner and to increase the rate of or return on homeownership as an investment.”

This can be a “financially rewarding experience,” Zhu and Rose say.

Zhu, whose research centers mostly on financial markets, corporate governance and capital structure, says co-authoring the paper with Rose was her first endeavor in exploring real estate research.

The paper, she explains, “is a product of combining the research in investments and real estate, where the quantitative modeling is applied to evaluate the return on a real estate investment given different financing options.”

Zhu says the “award definitely reinforced my confidence in pursuing the cross-disciplinary research, and I hope my continued efforts can bear more fruit in the future.”

Rose has published numerous refereed journal articles on topics such as real estate finance and investment analysis, Social Security retirement decision-making and tax-sheltered retirement investment planning.

His work has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Money magazine, Mutual Funds Magazine and other national publications.

In addition to teaching at Radford University, Rose served as director of the Center for Financial Education at Davis College. Rose also served as an advisor to the college’s Student Managed Investment Portfolio Organization (SMIPO).

Sep 4, 2020
Chad Osborne
540-831-7761
caosborne@radford.edu