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The aim of this paper is to introduce a framework that helps to identify strategic themes on which real estate investors form their strategies. A holistic approach to strategic management in real estate management has enjoyed popularity in corporate real estate research, while similar research has been lacking from the investor-based real estate management.

The research design consists of two main parts: 1) formulating propositions based on existing literature and 2) attempting to validate the propositions through a qualitative interview study with major real estate owners in Finland.

The main finding is that the current real estate investors reflect the transient nature of competitive advantages and assess their strategies accordingly. The companies consider the traditional profitability and revenue growth aspects of their business but also a more long-term future growth dimension. As an outcome, the investors base their strategies on eight strategic themes which are “Innovation”, “ESG”, “Marketing and sales”, “Financial management”, “Leasing management and tenant satisfaction”, “Competitive environment and portfolio management”, “Outsourcing and strategic partnerships” and “Cost and operation optimization”.

This paper opens opportunities for future research concerning different strategies in real estate investment business and their impacts.

The presented framework provides support for real estate investors to create real estate management strategy or to evaluate their current strategy and to recognize operational actions and decisions that are relevant for their strategy.

This paper provides an extension to corporate real estate (CRE) literature by showing that the CRE theories are adaptable to real estate investment and provide value for their strategic management. This paper also contributes to real estate investment literature by providing a well-founded and empirically contested strategic management framework, the IREM framework, for identifying strategic themes on which real estate investors form their strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the functionality and effectiveness of the Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor (CRREM tool). The aim of the project, supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, was to develop a broadly accepted tool that provides investors and other stakeholders with a sound basis for the assessment of stranding risks.

The tool calculates the annual carbon emissions (baseline emissions) of a given asset or portfolio and assesses the stranding risks, by making use of science-based decarbonisation pathways. To account for ongoing climate change, the tool considers the effects of grid decarbonisation, as well as the development of heating and cooling-degree days.

The paper provides property-specific carbon emission pathways, as well as valuable insight into state-of-the-art carbon risk assessment and management measures and thereby paves the way towards a low-carbon building stock. Further selected risk indicators at the asset (e.g. costs of greenhouse gas emissions) and aggregated levels (e.g. Carbon Value at Risk) are considered.

The approach described in this paper can serve as a model for the realisation of an enhanced tool with respect to other countries, leading to a globally applicable instrument for assessing stranding risks in the commercial real estate sector.

The real estate industry is endangered by the downside risks of climate change, leading to potential monetary losses and write-downs. Accordingly, this approach enables stakeholders to assess the exposure of their assets to stranding risks, based on energy and emission data.

The CRREM tool reduces investor uncertainty and offers a viable basis for investment decision-making with regard to stranding risks and retrofit planning.

The approach pioneers a way to provide investors with a profound stranding risk assessment based on science-based decarbonisation pathways.

Corporate governance principles are living a positive momentum in light of the megatrends reshaping the world. An effective company based on sound governance principles can prevent issues and corporate scandals as the company ensures greater transparency and accountability. Accordingly, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between shareholder-oriented corporate governance mechanisms, value and performances in the real estate sector.

This paper investigates the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms, performance and value in a sample of 111 USA real estate firms. After collecting data from 2014 to 2018, this paper tests the research hypothesis using the linear fixed-effect model.

The results demonstrate a positive impact of shareholder-oriented corporate governance mechanisms on performance and value. In particular, firms with no chief executive officer (CEO) duality and staggered board mechanisms and recognizing excess variable compensation to the firms' executive have a significantly higher Tobin's Q, return on assets (ROA) and price-to-book performance.

The implications are twofold: on the one hand, this motivates shareholders to establish new corporate control mechanisms to maximize value, attract more capital and improve operating performance. On the other hand, this allows investors to direct the investors' resources toward real estate firms with effective corporate governance mechanisms that may return higher performance and value.

Focusing on the real estate industry, where governance is expected to have a lower impact due to solid regulation, especially in real estate investment trusts (REITs), the research allows the formulation of industry-specific inferences that may be generalized for the general market.

Many studies have analysed the impact of various variables on the ability of companies to raise capital. While most of these studies are sector-agnostic, literature on the effects of macroeconomic variables on sectors that established over the last 20 years like property technology and financial technology, is scarce. This study aims to identify macroeconomic factors that influence the ability of both sectors and is extended by real estate variables.

The impact of macroeconomic and real estate related factors is analysed using multiple linear regression and quantile regression. The sample covers 338 observations for PropTech and 595 for FinTech across 18 European countries and 5 deal types between 2000–2001 with each observation representing the capital invested per year for each deal type and country.

Besides confirming a significant impact of macroeconomic variables on the amount of capital invested, this study finds that additionally the real estate transaction volume positively impacts PropTech while the real estate yield-bond-gap negatively impacts FinTech.

For PropTech and FinTech companies and their investors it is critical to understand the dynamic with mac-ro variables and also the real estate industry. The direct connection identified in this paper is critical for a holistic understanding of the effects of measurable real estate variables on capital investments into both sectors.

The analysis fills the gap in the literature between variables affecting investment into firms and effects of the real estate industry on the investment activity into PropTech and FinTech.

The purpose of this paper is to develop initial evidence about the nature and features of crowdfunding in China, given it is largely unregulated regulatory frameworks.

The paper used extensive desk research using data collected from the public and private sectors, after which the data was analyzed parallel to existing academic literature, that is, institutional context by Bruton et al. (2014). This paper uncovered patterns of development, profiling crowdfunding platforms, examining the regulatory landscape and providing antecedents of successful crowdfunding projects in China.

When the traditional financial markets are hard to reach, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) were starved for capital. Crowdfunding can play a major role in funding and risk sharing. It is an innovative and dynamic vehicle for MSMEs as well as enthusiastic investors in China. Since its initial introduction to China in 2009, crowdfunding has gained substantial popularity in a relatively short period. Currently, there is still not an identifiable guideline on how to delineate the significance of the crowdfunding platform. The development of crowdfunding in China faces a few unresolved key issues. As researchers exploring this phenomenon in new ways, crowdfunding platforms can be enhanced in a manner that benefits the capital seeker, investors and society as a whole.

There is a dearth of information on start-up crowdfunding in Asia. With little data available to analyze, so this paper hopes to contribute to knowledge and provide valuable information to researchers and industry representations. Crowdfunding represents a potentially disruptive change in the way that new ventures are funded. This paper represents an initial analysis in the study of new ventures in China. Finally, the authors provide recommendations for entrepreneurs, investors and policymakers as well as researchers and practitioners with suggestions about yet unexplored avenues of research.

This study illustrates the economic and financial dynamics of the sector, analysing the evolution of the main ratios of profitability and financial structure of 1,559 Italian real estate companies divided into the three macro-regions: North, Centre and South, in the period 2011–2020. In this way, it is also possible to verify the responsiveness to the 2020 pandemic crisis.

The analysis uses descriptive statistics tools and the ANOVA method of analysis of variance, supplemented by the Tukey–Kramer test, to identify significant differences between the three Italian macro-regions.

The study shows the increase in profitability after the 2008 crisis, despite its reverberation in the years 2012–2013. The financial structure of companies improved almost everywhere. The pandemic had modest effects on performance.

In the future, other indices should be considered to gain a more comprehensive view. This is a quantitative study based on financial statements data that neglects other important economic and social factors.

Public policies could use this study for better interventions to support the sector. In addition, internal management can compare their company's performance with the industry average to identify possible improvements.

The research analyses an economic field that employs a large number of people, especially when considering the construction and real estate services covered by this analysis.

The study contributes to the literature by providing a quantitative analysis of industry dynamics, with comparative information that can be deduced from financial statements over the years.

Real estate is a capital-intensive industry for which the asset values tend to be highly volatile and uncertain. Transaction costs in the industry are therefore high, and transparency for investors may be low. The need to signal reliable estimates of property assets, in the communication to external stakeholders, can therefore be expected to be of extra importance in this sector. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how real estate firms use big four auditors to signal quality.

The authors use Swedish firm level data containing all limited liability real estate companies in the country to determine the determinants of big four auditors. The data set consists of 34,306 observations and is analyzed through logit regressions.

The results show that big four companies are primarily contracted by large and mature companies, rather than new firms or firms with volatile financial records, although the latter could be expected to have a large need to signal quality. The authors also find that firms listed on the stock market and firms targeting public use real estate are more inclined to use big four companies.

Real estate is a capital-intensive industry for which the asset values tend to be highly volatile and uncertain. Transaction costs in the industry are therefore high, and transparency for investors may be low. The need to signal reliable estimates of property assets, in the communication to external stakeholders, can therefore be expected to be of extra importance in this sector. No prior study of this area has been detected.

Due to the young age of proptech, little is known about the dynamics of its expansion. In particular, there is limited agreement about a definition of “proptech,” while different categorizations are popping up. A severe lack of information emerges for the proptech scenario in Italy. The goal of this paper is to systematize multiple proptech maps in the attempt to create a framework for comparison of country-specific trends and an overarching definition of proptech. The research examines the evolutionary stage of the Italian digital real estate sector and compares it to the international context.

An in-depth analysis of 12 proptech maps at both national and international level was conducted based on online research. A list of Italian proptech companies was composed through multiple methods. A map was built for a cross-country comparison.

Each country or organization tends to develop its own categorization. This creates a multifaceted context where comparison and analysis are challenging. The Italian proptech sector seems underdeveloped compared to neighboring countries. Big room for improving the proptech business in this country still exists.

The results are valuable for proptech start-ups, business investors and well-established real estate actors to build on new entrepreneurial initiatives. The opportunity to advance proptech mapping and categorization emerges as a prospect for future research.

This research adds an overview of cross-country proptech categories and proposes the first analysis of Italian proptech. This will contribute to support entrepreneurial opportunities.

The individual levels involved in real estate management are thoroughly discussed in the literature. This paper provides a structured meta-analysis of the different theoretical approaches in German-speaking countries. It also investigates the integration of transaction management and technical due diligence into the concepts of organisation theory. In this process, the interfaces are analysed and optimised models are developed for transferring the technical due diligence findings to the operational level.

Interviews with transaction management experts were conducted based on a narrative literature review. These interviews shed light on how the components of transaction management and due diligence are integrated into the transaction process, with a particular focus on technical due diligence. They also provide insights into how the related results are taken into account in relation to the transaction, and how they are transferred into the operational phase.

It becomes apparent that the role of transaction management is not clearly defined and delimited in the structural model of the real estate industry. Technical due diligence findings are usually transferred to the operation of the property via several, manual interfaces with corresponding losses of knowledge. The related models derived and developed for the purpose of operational optimisation define the role of transaction management against a technical background and identify the interfaces to be considered.

The significance of transaction management for subsequent operations is discussed and elaborated on. More specifically, transferring safety-relevant, high-priority findings from the technical due diligence exercise plays a crucial role for the modelling stage. On the implementation level, the derived models serve as a basis for customising the internal organisational structure.

In Germany, there has hardly been any research into the involvement of technical experts in the real estate transaction process to date. This paper provides initial approaches to optimising organisational structures and sustainably integrating technical due diligence findings into real estate operations.

Contrary to the traditional technology project perspective, real estate investors see building-specific renewable energy (on-site energy) investments as part of the property and as something affecting the property’s ability to produce a (net) cash flow. This paper aims to show the value-influencing mechanism of on-site energy production from a professional property investors’ perspective.

The value-influencing mechanism is presented with a case study of a prime logistics property located in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland. The case study results are compared with the results of a survey answered by over 70 property valuation professionals in the Finnish real estate market.

Current valuation practice supports the presented value-creation mechanism based on the capitalisation of the savings generated by a building’s own energy production. Valuation professionals see benefits beyond decreased operating expenses such as enhanced image and better saleability. However, valuers acted more conservatively than expected when transferring these additional benefits to the cash flows of the case property.

Because the savings in operating expenses can be capitalised into the property value, property investors should consider on-site energy production when the return of on-site energy exceeds the return of the property. This enhances the profitability of on-site energy, especially in urban areas with low initial yields.

This is the first research paper to open the value-influencing mechanism of on-site energy production from a professional property investors’ perspective in commercial properties and to confirm it from a market study.