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Digital and information technologies (IT) are becoming silently pervasive in old-fashioned real estate markets. This paper focuses on three important avenues for the diffusion of IT in commercial real estate: online brokerage and sales, the commoditization of space and Fintech in mortgage and equity funding. We describe the main new markets and products created by this IT revolution. The focus is on the pioneering US market, with some attention devoted to the specific firms and institutions taking these innovations into the mainstream. We also carefully analyze the economic underpinnings from which the new technologies can expect to generate cash flows, thus becoming viable—or not. Finally, we discuss their likely impact on established players in the commercial real estate arena.

In this paper, the author chooses to focus on three separate arenas where the IT revolution—sometimes referred to as Proptech, as applied to real estate—is having discernible impacts: sales and brokerage, space commoditization and online finance platforms. The author invites the reader to think seriously about the economic fundamentals that may—or may not—sustain new business models in Proptech. Real estate economists and investors alike need to be critical of new business models, especially when they are being aggressively marketed by their promoters. Trying to avoid any hype, the author provides thoughts about the likely impact of the innovations on their markets, guided by economic and finance theory, and previous experience.

The author evaluates the evolution of commercial real estate brokerage. While innovations will, no doubt, have an impact on the ways in which we buy and lease commercial properties, the lessons from the housing market should make us skeptical about the possibility of the new technologies dramatically facilitating disintermediation in this market. In fact, new oligopolies seem to be emerging with regard to market data provision.

Proptech will change some aspects of the real estate industry, but not others!

As change pervades the property industry, only a relatively few research pieces are illustrating or—more importantly—providing insights about the likely economic and financial impacts of IT penetration. Similarly, only a few papers have so far addressed the economic viability of the alternative business models of tech startups targeting real estate markets and transactions.

Commercial real estate (CRE) is a major investment asset. Yet detailed information on the value of investible CRE in different cities is lacking. The authors propose an innovative method to measure the value of investible CRE using transaction datasets.

The authors take transaction prices and index them to produce a time series of values for each asset. The sum of the values at each point represents the value of investible CRE at that date. The authors’ method is applied to transaction data for New York, London and Toronto.

London had the highest proportions of institutional and foreign ownership, and its turnover was more resilient to the downturn in global CRE following the GFC. The results illustrate the potential of the authors’ method to shed light on the characteristics of investible CRE markets.

The authors use data from Real Capital Analytics (RCA). This provides good coverage of transactions for investible CRE in the cities that the authors examine, but data from other sources might lead to different estimates.

Measuring the value and turnover of investible CRE is important for portfolio strategies that account for the size and liquidity of investment markets. Knowledge of these features, and of ownership patterns, provides a better understanding of market operation.

The authors’ modification of the perpetual inventory technique is simple, novel and practical. The authors propose this approach given the absence of a building-by-building inventory of investible CRE in many markets.

Property management in commercial real estate (CRE) is an important operational function that needs to be managed because it brings large cost implications to the organization. As India aspires to become a developed real estate market, analysis of the growing importance of automating property services and technology acceptance by stakeholders are two key concerns that need to be explicitly addressed. This study aims to examine the extent of property technology (PropTech) adoption in India and propose a technology-enabled stakeholder management model in Indian CRE.

The research is qualitative in nature and follows the grounded theory approach. Research data were collected by conducting a series of semi-structured interviews with 18 property management professionals from different prominent Indian companies using PropTech.

The findings suggested the nine most typical automated property management functions in Indian CRE. The result of this research is the automated property services model for stakeholder management in CRE. The model demonstrates the value of implementing technology in property services in India.

The study provides useful insights into how artificial intelligence (AI) in property management can be applied to address property-related challenges, various stakeholder needs and improve property performance in accordance with energy efficiency policies.

This paper attempts to add to the limited body of literature on technology in the property management domain. The model demonstrates how automated property services meet the needs of different stakeholders in CRE and provides remote working procedures within the COVID-19 pandemic context.

Commercial real estate (CRE) indicators typically include asset deals and exclude share deals. This study aims to explore the phenomenon of real estate share deals and assess whether omitting these transactions results in indicators that do not accurately reflect the market.

Various registers in the Netherlands were used to estimate transaction volumes, total values and price developments of both share and asset deals. Share deals are company transfers and its transactions cover more than real estate. To estimate the contribution of real estate in share deals, valuations were used.

In the Netherlands, share deals are most prominent for rental dwellings. Adding share deals to volume and value indicators seems required. In price development estimates, significant differences were found for dwellings between share and asset deals. Price indices should, therefore, also include share deals, but in practice this is difficult and has little impact on the outcomes due to the low weight of share deals.

Legislation has a major impact on choosing a share or asset deal. The significance of share deals is expected to vary amongst countries. Performing similar research in other countries will contribute in harmonising real estate indicators.

Statistical agencies face many challenges in the construction of CRE indicators. This study provides statisticians knowledge that can be used to evaluate possible data gaps.

This is the first study to estimate indicators of real estate share deals and compare these to asset deal indicators.

The authors aim to measure the value of leasing, versus owning, business locations for the closely-held firm.

The authors examine the sales transactions of small businesses in the USA – those with revenues of less than $20 million per year – between 1995 and 2010. The authors contrast the values of firms that own, and do not own, their real estate.

In general, the authors find negative relationships between closely-held firm values and real estate ownership. Nowhere did the authors observe firm value being enhanced by property ownership.

The data set may be limited by the accuracy of the data provided by business brokers. Compared to the capital markets, the small business “exchange” is less efficient, but it is the only source of unlisted business sales data.

The findings are important to the small-business broker and the investor. The broker might better advise the buyer and seller with the findings. Business owners, private equity investors, and their advisors, are all reminded to focus on the core business strategy and avoid getting “locked into” real estate ownership in a business investment.

The impact of real estate on the valuations of closely-held firms is a largely unexamined area. And there is a lack of consistency on publicly-held company valuations as a function of real estate ownership; these public company findings and the dearth of work on the privately-held company's real estate attract the attention in this study.

This paper addresses decision-making for commercial real estate (CRE) firms and professionals within the context of rapid technological innovations capable of business model disruption. It considers the paradoxical notion of the need for CRE firms to become ambidextrous by simultaneously exploiting their existing business model and exploring possible opportunities and threats. The paper develops a practical approach, the paradox map, for dealing with this paradoxical problem.

This qualitative research draws on work from organizational management, leadership, social sciences and technology. This research frames the definition and development of an ambidextrous mindset and its components. Paradox management is explored as a possible source of useful tools.

The ambidextrous mindset is a paradox in that exploit and explore are ongoing interrelated opposing forces. Further, the mindset is the product of a number of sub-paradoxes that act as levers for its development and adjustment. The paradox map is developed to facilitate dealing with numerous paradoxes.

The paradox map is a useful tool for commercial real-estate firms to understand and develop an ambidextrous mindset.

Commercial real estate is experiencing a wave of substantive technological disruption in the proptech marketplace and beyond. This paper attempts to clarify the paradox of innovation and its underlying sub-paradoxes to help professionals navigate the interrelated landscape of exploiting past products and exploring innovations.

The purpose of this paper is to uncover the relationship between flows and real estate investment at open-ended real estate funds (OEREFs).

The study employs fixed-effects panel regressions, relying on data from the Hungarian fund managers’ trade association. First, the effect of lagged flows on allocation to real estate is assessed. Second, the paper studies how this relationship changes as the cyclical position of CRE market advances using two proxies.

Flows are found to affect funds’ real estate holdings if they occurred 12–18 months earlier. Inflows (outflows) in the preceding six months demonstrably lower (increase) funds’ real estate holdings ratio. Beyond this relationship, findings do not suggest that less funds are channelled to real estate as “CRE heat” intensifies.

In an environment marked by strong cash inflows, the investment lag can translate into a significant drop in funds’ exposure to real estate. The share of real estate at Hungarian funds in the sample, for example, fell from 79 to 50 per cent on average over the period of 2011–2017. Measures designed to limit inflows are in the interest of those existing investors who wish to avoid a dilution of the core investment strategy.

The paper adds to the literature on OEREFs which has been particularly scarce on liquidity transformation during non-crisis times and on non-German funds.

Time is a critical element of commercial real estate (CRE) and has received only cursory attention. This paper identifies and describes the interactions between time, change and CRE. It leads to important implications and possible changes in professional practice, teaching and research.

The research design involves identifying and synthesising research in a disparate discipline into a coherent portrayal of time, change and CRE. Using the CRE environment as a foundation, a more comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach is developed to highlight the temporal issues within CRE.

The extreme levels of complexity, dynamism and uncertainty characterising current CRE environments affect the interaction of time, change and CRE. In response, CRE has become increasingly specialised in property types and time segments. The paper identifies four issues for CRE: the role of CRE as an integrator of different layers of civilisation with different clock speeds, the need for a temporal mindset recognising finite and infinite games, the need for temporal ambidexterity and the use of strategic foresight and scenarios. The very definition of CRE as an industry is questioned.

Need for essential empirical work as well as additional work for implications.

CRE faces disruption from many sources, and this paper considers how to incorporate time and change into analysis of the CRE market environment. It identifies specific ways CRE can understand and avoid disruption. Further, areas of teaching and research are highlighted.

Real estate assets are substantial, long-lived assets with important consequences for society. This paper advances the analysis of such assets.

Areas of concentration in CRE and academia needing attention are identified. The areas have generally not been considered prior to this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the property valuation methods that are applied in Poland. It shows that they base on international standards and are a reliable source of information for international investors and banks.

The valuation methods are described and critically assessed, potential problems are pointed out. The analysis of lending risk is analysed on data about non-performing loans (NPL).

Polish valuation methods are in line with international methods, but there are some risks, like small number of transactions, subjective behaviour of valuers. The low NPL ratios indicate that the valuation works correctly.

The Polish valuation methods are trustworthy, non-performing mortgage ratios are low, however, banks and investors should ask whether there is a local zoning plan. Moreover, they should look critically at the comparables that were used during the valuation process, if in their opinion the valuation is overly low or high.

This paper focusses on valuation from a financial stability perspective. It uses Polish literature and data on NPLs to give an insight on valuation of property and mortgage risk in Poland. Besides the review of the methods it points out the problems related to valuation uncertainty, such as the risk of subjective behaviour of valuers and the low number of transactions in some regions, which are used for valuations.