Real Estate Lesson from Beijing's Athlete's Village

The Chicago Tribune has a reporter at the Beijing Summer Olympics whose assignment is to look for lessons that could help Chicago - if we get chosen to host the 2016 Summer Olympic games.

She recently had a column about the athlete's village, which was built for the games.

Many of the athletes and coaches told her that it is the best village ever. They especially like it when compared to Athens four years ago - which is considered one of the worst.

Here is where the real estate lesson comes in. An Olympic athlete's village costs a lot of money (Chicago's estimate is $1.1 billion) and it will only be used for a few weeks. So, both Athens and Beijing designed the housing with a plan to reuse it.

The big difference is that Athens designed it to be a public housing project, while Beijing had the project done by private developers who build luxury apartments and were allowed to sell them before the Olympics to get their investment and profit.

So, in Athens, the athletes lived in basic units with dirt paths while, in Beijing, the athletes got to live in luxury apartments.