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This paper aims to investigate the effects of school quality (SQ) on residential property prices in Johannesburg, South Africa. Previous studies have empirically examined the quality of private and public schools without a standard proxy that is accepted in the literature. As a result, this paper extends the literature to the global south by the effect that SQ has on residential property price changes in the local markets of the City of Johannesburg.

The research adopts the hedonic pricing model to evaluate and quantify the impact that the structural attributes such as erf size; number of bedrooms and bathrooms; and SQ measured by pass rates, sport rankings and quality of facilities have on house prices. A total of 2,763 property transactions covering the Kensington and Observatory areas of the City of Johannesburg over the period 2010 and 2020 were obtained from the deeds registry and used for the empirical analysis.

The study finds that SQ has a positive impact on house prices. When the average pass rate of the model school increases by 1%, all other things being equal, house prices also increase by 1.8%. This suggests that people who live closer to the model school are willing to pay more when the school performance improves. The 1.8% premium this study attributes to a 1% increase in school performance is however generally low when compared to some findings in the literature suggesting that there may be some other important factors that households consider when purchasing their home.

The main contribution is uncovering the relationship between the SQ and residential property prices in the local markets, using Kensington and Observatory in Johannesburg as sampled areas. Due to the presence of reliable and quality of data sets, such studies are not many in the global south and a study of this nature in South Africa is notably not existing in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to test whether temporal aggregation matters when constructing hedonic house price indices for developing markets using Ghana as a case study.

Monthly, quarterly, semi-yearly and yearly hedonic price indices are constructed and six null hypotheses are tested using the F-ratios to examine the temporal aggregation effect.

The results show that temporal aggregation may not be a serious issue when constructing hedonic house price indices for developing markets as a result of the smaller sample size which these markets normally have. At even 10 per cent significance level, none of the F-ratios estimated is statistically significant. Analysis of the mean returns and volatilities reveal that indices constructed at the lower level of temporal aggregation are very volatile, suggesting that the volume of transactions can affect the level of temporal aggregation, and so, the temporal aggregation level should not be generalised, as is currently observed in the literature.

The diversification importance of real estate and the introduction of real estate derivatives and home equity insurance as financial products call for the construction of robust and accurate real estate indices in all markets. While almost all empirical research recommends real estate price indices to be conducted at the lower level of temporal aggregation, these studies are largely conducted in developed markets where transactions take place frequently and large transaction databases exist. Unfortunately, little is known about the importance of temporal aggregation effect when constructing indices for developing real estate markets. This paper contributes to fill these gaps.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test for submarket existence based on an understanding of the residential rental housing market in Ghana.

Based on extant literature and market observations, the authors provide key concepts and an overview of the residential rental market dynamics in Ghana. Reseachers appreciate that submarkets may exist in the Ghanaian rental market but have ignored the empirical testing for submarket existence due to data asymmetries. Based on real estate experts and stakeholder consultations, a priori delineation of submarkets are constructed based on spatial, structural and a nested approach. Submarket existence is tested using the Kruskal–Wallis H test and Hedonic modelling techniques.

By using fieldwork data from Accra rental market, the analysis provides credence to the conceptualisation of submarkets and how to empirically test for same. It is argued that researchers should use alternative methods to compare results to make far-reaching conclusions.

Examining the hypothesis that differential rental values exists for submarkets has implications for policy decisions to target submarket constructs differently to improve market maturity.

The research provides stakeholder investors in the rental space an understanding of market dynamics for profit maximisation, and end-users to maximise utility in deciding where to live – and as such households could benefit from making informed investment decisions on housing.

This research is one of the first attempts to empirically identify and test for submarkets existence in Ghana’s residential rental housing market.

There is a long-standing debate about the relationship between land title registration and tenure security. Studies in the developing world point to a tenuous link between land registration and stable land tenure. The reason why people continue to register therefore becomes a mystery if tenure security is not entirely assured. This article focuses on the increase in property value as one such factor that induces title registration. Previous studies have quantified the economic impact of title registration on property values. However, the impact varies from city or country to another. The authors seek to investigate the extent of property value increment in Accra attributable to land title registration.

The authors statistically analyzed a data set from two institutions (First National Bank and the Lands Commission) in Ghana using a quantitative technique.

The authors discovered that, holding all other factors constant, the value of the land in Accra increases by 22.6% due to land title registration. This shows that lessees must register to enhance property values, even though the essential due diligence must be done to make sure the acquisition is free from liens and legal disputes.

This article highlights the implication of the findings for land administration as well as the practice of property valuation, development and brokerage in Ghana and Global South more broadly.

This is one of the first studies in Ghana to investigate the specific premium that housing markets put on land title registration.

This study aims to document the major underlying forces prohibiting housing development in urban Ghana. Previous studies in Ghana have not empirically examined these constraints, but an empirical examination of these factors would help to formulate proper policies to address the housing shortage problems in Ghana. This paper fills this gap.

Using a purposive sampling technique, the authors surveyed the chief executive officers (CEOs) of private real estate development companies within Accra and Tema with a Likert scale questionnaire to measure the severity of the factors hindering housing development in these areas.

The results show that real estate developers consider the supply problems in housing to be driven mainly by formal and informal institutional factors. A large percentage of the CEOs reported that land tenure arrangements, lengthy procedure involved in securing building permits and process of land acquisition and registration in Ghana were the major factors that significantly affected housing supply. The difficulty in accessing development funds, underdeveloped mortgage market and high interest rates were some of the market-based factors constraining housing development.

This study empirically examines the factors that hinder housing development in Ghana, making a clear distinction between the market and institutional forces. The paper proposes policy recommendations for a more effective and direct government intervention to improve urban housing supply.

This paper aims to discuss whether alignment between corporate real estate strategy and corporate strategy exists for non-property companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange and what effects alignment has on the firms’ financial performance.

The study was both qualitative and quantitative in nature, with a specific focus on non-property firms listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange. The qualitative part of the study involved the analysis of the firms’ annual reports to determine the presence and use of corporate real estate strategies and their alignment to corporate strategy and the extraction of financial indicator data. The quantitative portion of the study involved the use of multivariate analysis, to distinguish and quantify the relationship, if any, between corporate real estate strategy and the identified financial performance indicators. The independent variables were the CRE strategies employed and the dependent variable was the share price. The methods used in this study have been applied before in European and Asian studies; this assisted in ensuring that validity and reliability was achieved.

The study finds that the most used strategy by firms (47%) is that which facilitates production, operation and service delivery. The Consumer Goods, Healthcare and Telecommunications sectors appear to demonstrate the highest level of alignment. Return on Shareholder Funds has a strong significant positive correlation with share price. Flexibility as a corporate real estate strategy also has a significant positive coefficient, which indicates a positive relationship with share price.

Although consistent with results of studies conducted in Europe and Asia, the results of this research may not be applicable to privately held non-listed firms, state-owned enterprises, non-profits and educational institutions. This study also ignores the dynamic external environment in which firms operate and the necessity of firms adjusting their corporate real estate strategy to their changing business strategy.

These results suggest that the incorporation of corporate real estate strategy in the firms’ corporate strategy formulation has the potential to enhance shareholder value for South African firms. Real estate developers, landlords and owner occupiers would benefit from better understanding the strategic requirements of corporations to ensure that the solutions they provide increase the likelihood of maximizing shareholder return.

The role of corporate real estate strategy in the firms’ corporate strategy formulation has the ability to enhance shareholder value. This research adds to the scant literature on corporate real estate management in South Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to test the accuracy of the explicit time variable (ETV) and the strictly cross-sectional (SCS) hedonic models when constructing house price indices in developing markets using Ghana as a case study.

The quantitative research methodology is adopted where the accuracy of the two hedonic models used in the construction of house price indices is examined using the mean squared error (MSE) and out-of-sample technique. Yearly indices are constructed for each of the models using 60 per cent of the sample data and 40 per cent is used to forecast house prices for each observations based on which the MSEs are calculated.

The two models produce similar house price trend but the SCS model is more volatile. The ETV model produces the lower MSE, suggesting that it is better to pool data together and includes time dummies (ETV) to estimate indices rather than running separate regressions (SCS) to estimate the index. Using the Morgan–Granger–Newbold test, it is found that indeed the difference between the forecast errors of the two models are statistically significant on a 1 per cent level confirming the accuracy of the ETV model over the SCS model.

This paper has produced convincing results recommending the use of the ETV hedonic model to construct house price indices which is of use to practitioners and academics.

The introduction of financial products like the property derivatives and home equity insurances to the financial market calls for accurate and robust property price indices and the hedonic method is mostly used to construct these indices. While there have been a lot of test conducted as to which variant of the hedonic method to use in developed markets, little is known about the developing markets. This paper contributes to fill these gaps.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if temporal aggregation matters in the construction of house price indices and to test the accuracy of alternative index construction methods.

Five index construction models based on the hedonic, repeat‐sales and hybrid methods are examined. The accuracy of the alternative index construction methods are examined using the mean squared error and out‐of‐sample technique. Monthly, quarterly, semi‐yearly and yearly indices are constructed for each of the methods and six null hypotheses are tested to examine the temporal aggregation effect.

Overall, the hedonic is the best method to use. While running separate regressions to estimate the index is best at the broader level of time aggregation like the annual, pooling data together and including time dummies to estimate the index is the best at the lower level of time aggregation. The repeat‐sales method is the least preferred method. The results also show that it is important to limit time to the lowest level of temporal aggregation when construction property price indices.

This paper provides alternative method, the mean squared error method based on an out‐of‐sample technique to evaluate the accuracy of alternative index construction methods.

The introduction of financial products like the property derivatives and home equity insurances to the financial market calls for accurate and robust property price indices. However, the index method and level of temporal aggregation to use still remain unresolved in the index construction literature. This paper contributes to fill these gaps.

The purpose of this paper is to use local-level time series data to examine the determinants of housing starts and the price elasticity of supply for the Aberdeen local housing market.

Seven time series models are used in the analysis. The basic model treats housing starts as a function of the changes of current and lagged house prices, interest rate and construction cost. The other six models which are extensions of the basic model include other variables like time on the market, planning constraints and future expectations.

It is found that the local variables – changes in house prices, time on the market, planning regulation, lagged stock and lagged and future housing starts – are the main factors that influence new residential construction in Aberdeen. None of the national variables is significant, confirming the importance of limiting housing market analysis to the local level. The price elasticity of supply estimated is in the range of 2.0 to 3.2 for housing starts and 0.01 to 0.02 for housing stock. These estimates are higher than most of the elasticities for the other UK local markets.

There is the need to better understand the supply of housing at the various local housing markets. Unfortunately, however, most housing supply studies use national data. Because national data are aggregation of local data, using national studies results for local markets may be uninformative. Also, the few existing local studies use typically cross-section data or at least time series over relatively short time spans. This paper makes an effort to use quarterly time series data over a 25-year period for a local market and also include a planning variable which is different from local markets and often ignored in national or regional studies.