The modern housing market is constantly changing, and for a long time has been sesen as “unjust.” Athletics Operations Manager Juan Cobos led students through a four-day long course about the ins and outs of real estate, taking them around Dobbs Ferry and even into a recently closed property to have a first-hand experience of a realtor.

When he was originally crafting this idea, Cobos said, “Not a lot of people know this, but I am hen I heard that we doing something that is outside of the scope of work that we do on a daily basis, I knew that real estate was the direction I wanted to take this in.”

However, it wasn’t just a “Real Estate 101” class, it was skewed to create a “just” housing market for all Americans. Cobos said, “I knew that it would be fun to teach the students how to be realtors, but we wanted to make sure that it had that element of being a Power for Good. When we went the route of equal and affordable housing, it turned out to really amplify the meaning of our course.”

As a wrapping thought, Cobos said, “A lot of the students gave feedback about discussing investing and buying properties to use that to build generational wealth. That is probably the only thing I would try to implement next time around.” After a very positive response from students during and after the course, the thought of next year’s Wintermission is already beginning to brew. Cobos said “,I plan and hope that this course and I can continue to be a part of Wintermission.”

As Cobos had hoped, the students had a great response to the lessons. For example, Nathan Lothian ‘24 said, “I’ve always known what real estate is and how it affected people’s lives, but I didn’t really know the in-depth process of it.” During the initial lessons of the class, “Day one was honestly great. I loved my first impression, especially in this course, it really felt like it [the lesson] meant something in the world and I could feel that I was going to apply what I learned to the real world.” As a whole, Lothian was very content with the projects and course as a whole. Looking back, he said, “As soon as the course ended, I felt like that was one of the best class settings I’ve ever been in.”