Editorial

Citation

McGreal, S. (2012), "Editorial", Journal of European Real Estate Research, Vol. 5 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jerer.2012.35905baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of European Real Estate Research, Volume 5, Issue 2

As the official journal of the European Real Estate Society (ERES), this issue of JERER is pleased to publish a number of the award winning papers from the previous year’s annual conference. In 2011, the 18th Annual ERES Conference was hosted by Eindhoven University of Technology and with some 250 papers presented the conference brought together leading researchers from Europe and from sister societies throughout the world. The success of ERES conferences has been built around engagement with our partners and sponsors which the Society has developed over the years. In particular the Board of ERES is most appreciative of the awards for prize winning papers and would like to once again express our gratitude to the sponsors of these prizes which greatly enhances the conference.

The four award winning papers published in this issue capture the wide-ranging nature of real estate research and the diverse breadth of content that typifies the annual conference. The Board of ERES greatly values our relationship with Emerald and in particular the sponsorship of the Gerald Brown Memorial Prize for the Best Paper on Real Estate Markets and Forecasting. The winner of the prize for 2011 was Sotiris Tsolacos from Property and Portfolio Research (PPR), London and School of Real Estate and Planning, Henley Business School, University of Reading for his paper on The Role of Sentiment Indicators for Real Estate Market Forecasting. This paper advocates sentiment indicators and the role of probit analysis in informing forecasting and risk assessment processes.

The Investment Property Databank (IPD) has a long association with ERES sponsoring the best paper on Real Estate Investment. The winner of the prize for 2011 is Stephen Lee from Cass Business School, City University London. Stephen’s paper on The Performance Gap in UK Property Returns implies that estimates of the performance of the UK property market based on property returns do not necessarily reflect the experience of investors as a group.

ERES greatly values the mutually beneficial relationships with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) as the leading global professional body and in particular the sponsorship by RICS of two awards for the best papers on Sustainability and Housing, respectively. The former was awarded to Marcelo Cajias, Peter Geiger and Sven Bienert from IRE|BS University of Regensburg, for their paper on Green Agenda and Green Performance: Empirical Evidence for Real Estate Companies which argues that green commitments are not merely altruisms but are economically driven. The best paper on housing was awarded to a team drawn principally from the host university of the 2011 conference, Eindhoven University of Technology, Erfaneh Allameh, Mohammadali Heidari Jozam, Bauke de Vries, Harry Timmermans, Jakob Beetz and Farhang Mozaffar for their paper on The Role of Smart Home in Smart Real Estate in which the authors consider the feasibility and impact of new technologies on future lifestyle and dwelling in the domain of real estate.

The ERES looks forward to receiving submissions for the best paper awards from the 2012 conference in Edinburgh and greatly welcomes the continuing commitment from our sponsors.

Stanley McGreal