need some advice on school selection

These are great questions. Typically, I recommend applicants go for MBA programs in the region or area where they would ideally like to end up working. This actually goes double for real estate on the one hand, since real estate is obviously a local market. The firms you are targeting, however are international real estate firms. For example, I know someone who got their MBA in the US and now works for CBRE overseas in Hong Kong. So on the other hand, you could do well by getting an MBA out West then working for CBRE or others. The rub comes in where you want to live. If you truly want to work in the South, you should think about a program in the area, but the problem is, there aren't too many well known Real Estate programs as compared to New York and Los Angeles. My gut feeling is to prioritize the program if you are targeting international real estate firms then talk the firms into letting you work out of the Atlanta office, for example. Still, you will be far from your network, which may take some convincing for the hiring firm to believe you will be fully effective. I would definitely be reaching out to your target employers for informational interviews now--you can simply ask them what they would prefer to see from graduates. REaching out through linkedin or mutual contacts with friends in the industry would be your best strategy. Someone once told me to never go into a meeting unless you already know the outcome. Similarly, you can "reverse engineer" your post MBA vision if you start with the employer and work backwards to the schools. hope this helps.

Thank you so much Bryant for your detail reply.

So what I understand from your post -
1.post-Anderson, in RE it could have been difficult to land up with a job in any of the firms mentioned herewith either in East or South coast (re Texas/Georgia(Atlanta)/North Carolina etc.). Right ?

2.Now,this could have been overcome/avoided provided that these firms would be willing to put me in their East/South offices after UCLA. So,first thing would be to getting in touch with 'em and then decide accordingly.

3. Bottom-line is if answer to 2 is NEGATIVE, then strike out UCLA.

Please correct me if I'm wrong or you meant otherwise in any of the above three aspects.

Look forward to hear from you.

P.S: BTW, here we're assuming that what the firms will say now. will stick to it during recruitment at UCLA. Isn't it bit stretched assumption in this context? Thoughts ?