Aug. 18, 2025
This event listing is sponsored by South Dakota State University.
At this year’s South Dakota Land and Lending Conference, hosted by the Ness School of Management and Economics at SDSU on Oct. 1 at the Denny Sanford Premier Center, hear from nationally recognized thought leaders about the challenges and opportunities in real estate in the region and beyond, and the macroeconomic forces — policy induced and otherwise — driving the U.S. economy.
“The conference targets real estate markets — the land — and the sources of credit — the lending — funding the markets,” said Joe Santos, the Larry and Diane Ness endowed director and professor of economics at the Ness School.
“The mission of the conference is to advance understanding of real estate markets, including how they are affected by conditions in the credit channel and decisions by public policymakers, including fiscal and monetary policymakers,” Santos said.
This year, the path for interest rates and the role the Federal Reserve likely will play in determining the path will feature largely in the macroeconomics segment of the event.
Additionally, the conference encourages and strengthens relationships among academic researchers, real estate professionals, lenders and policymakers.
“This year, we will begin the event with Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, discussing the macroeconomy, and we will end the event with Sam Chandan, director of the C.H. Chen Institute for Global Real Estate Finance at NYU, discussing the future of real estate — its credit channels and otherwise,” Santos said. “Sam co-authored the World Economic Forum’s Framework for the Future of Real Estate.
“In between, a panel of real estate industry leaders, hosted by Jeff Eckhoff of the city of Sioux Falls and including Christine Gaffney of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, Jay Parsons of WayMaker, Eric Lynch of the National Association of Home Builders and Diane Swonk will discuss regional challenges and opportunities.
“Over lunch, a panel of educators in nationally recognized real estate programs, hosted by Bill Even of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and including Sam Chandan of NYU, Xiaozhou Ding of SDSU, Mike Eriksen of Purdue University and Gary Painter of the University of Cincinnati will discuss how such programs advance regional economic growth.
“And participants in several concurrent breakout sessions will discuss issues specific to local real estate markets.”
The event also will include an introduction to one of SDSU’s newest members. Paul Rann, program manager for Urban Economic Development, headquartered in the school’s outpost at Startup Sioux Falls, will sit down with Santos to discuss the vision for the outpost.
The event is well worth the time of real estate developers, lenders, investors, policymakers, regulators and students, Santos said.
To learn more about the conference, including how to register for it, visit here.