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American real estate appraisers given identical valuation problems produced statistically different value estimates. The measured variable between experimental groups was an agency‐client treatment operationalized as a pending mortgage scenario. This finding is consistent with the view of anchoring as a routinized response to agent‐client concerns. Experienced appraisers may develop heuristic behaviors which subconsciously sensitizes them to agency‐client considerations. Although further research is warranted, this study provides initial experimental evidence of a causal link between agency‐client concerns and valuation bias.

The literature on investor decision‐making behaviour in property investment is sparse, loosely integrated and focused principally upon large, institutional investors. It reflects rational, normative models that treat investor behaviour as highly structured and formalised. By contrast, behavioural psychology suggests that individuals frequently act sub‐optimally. These ideas have been explored in financial decision making and have been found in the actions of property valuers and property lenders. This paper addresses this neglected area of property investment decision‐making. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with a sample of property investment directors of smaller property companies. The interviews investigate the decision‐making structures in these companies, the process by which investment strategy is formulated, the investment “screening” process and the determinants of purchase/sell decisions. The findings are discussed and related to the literature on decision making under uncertainty.

Theory suggest that valuers will rely on previous values estimates in the face of greater market uncertainty. Nevertheless recent research has provided evidence that experienced real estate valuers (appraisers) working in geographic areas familiar to them may not be influenced by the previous value judgement of other, anonymous experts. Presents a study which extends the previous investigation by examining appraisers valuing property in geographic areas unfamiliar to them, appraisers who therefore face significant market uncertainty. In controlled experiments valuers were asked to appraise a subject property in an area unfamiliar to them and were offered the previous value judgement of an anonymous expert as a potential anchor (reference point). A control group of experts unfamiliar with the subject market was given no reference point whatsoever. Evaluation of the experimental data revealed evidence that unlike subjects operating in areas of familiarity, subjects unfamiliar with the subject area were influenced by the provided reference point.

Behavioural studies of valuers have suggested that valuers rely on a number of cognitive strategies involving reasoning and intuition when undertaking a valuation task. However, there are few studies of the actual reasoning mechanisms in valuation. In other fields, much attention has been paid to forward and backward reasoning, as this shows the choices and decisions that are made in undertaking a complex task. This paper studied this during a valuation task. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to develop a methodological approach for empirical research on valuers’ reasoning, and, second, to report expert-novice differences on valuers’ use of forward and backward reasoning during a valuation problem solving.

The study utilised a verbal protocol analysis (VPA) to elicit think-aloud data from a purposive sample of a group of valuers of different levels of expertise undertaking a commercial-valuation task. Through a content analysis interpretive strategy, the transcripts were analysed into different cognitive segments identifying the forward and backward reasoning strategies.

The findings showed that valuers accomplished the valuation task by dividing the overall problem into sub-problems. These sub-problems are thereafter solved by integrating available data with existing knowledge by relying more on forward reasoning than backward reasoning. However, there were effects associated with the level of expertise in the way the processes of forward and backward reasoning are used, with the expert and intermediate valuers being more thorough and comprehensive in their reasoning process than the novices.

This study explores the possibility that forward and backward reasoning play an important role in commercial valuation problem solving using a limited sample of valuers. Given this, data cannot be generalised to all valuation practice settings but may motivate future research that examines the effectiveness of forward and backward reasoning in diverse valuation practice settings and develops a holistic model of valuation reasoning.

The findings of this study are applicable to valuation practice. Future training efforts need to evaluate the usefulness of teaching problem solving and explicitly recognise forward and backward reasoning, along with other problem-solving strategies uncovered in this study, as standard training strategies for influencing the quality of valuation decisions.

By adopting VPA, this study employs an insightful and rich dataset which allows an interpretation of thoughts of valuers into cognitive reasoning strategies that provide a deeper level of understanding of how valuers solve valuation problem; this has not been possible in previous related valuation studies.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of theoretical knowledge related to financial behaviour and especially anchor effects.

The study design is based upon an experiment divided into two parts, before and after the development of the course curriculum for the course introducing behavioural finance for undergraduate real estate students.

The study concludes that the anchor effect is persistent also after introducing theoretical knowledge regarding financial behaviour and anchor effects. To conclude the results, in this study, indicates that the appraisal of properties are dependent on the individual’s cognitive capacity to mitigate anchor effects. There are epistemological assumptions underlying the belief in the individuals’ capacity to handle anchor effects that might provide biased appraisals. These assumptions need to be carefully tested and treated to increase the accuracy of property appraisals.

The study result also highlights the possibility that current literature in valuation, and learning activities, does not emphases and stimulate readers to critical thinking. This paper would, therefore, propose also other real estate education programmes to be aware of the potential lack of critical thinking among the students.

It provides an insight regarding how appraisal of properties is dependent on the individual’s cognitive capacity to mitigate anchor effects.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the core dimensions of problem solving of experts in commercial valuation in order to provide a rich stimulus for managing current practice and enabling future development.

The study adopted a cognitive position but emphasised understanding the everyday commercial property valuation practice in a naturalistic context and from the participants’ perspectives. Given this, a grounded theory approach was employed as a research strategy to guide the data collection and surface theoretical interpretations. Data were obtained through in-depth interviews with practicing valuers working in private real estate firms within metropolitan Birmingham, UK.

The interviews uncover four dimensions of experts’ problem-solving practice in commercial valuation: multidimensional, domain-specific knowledge base; cognitive process that is centred on analysis and reflection; collaborative problem-solving venture with colleagues; and professional practice issues awareness. A conceptual model is proposed which integrates these dimensions enabling a clearer understanding of the nature of valuation work.

This study was designed to be descriptive and theory generating, thus, the findings cannot be generalised as the sample was confined to one city and consists of a small number of senior practicing valuers. Therefore, the findings may not be fully applicable to other practicing valuers, other geographical locations or more widely to other types of property valuation. Nevertheless, the findings provide an important cognitive framework which can be verified by other researchers seeking to examine the practice of expert valuers.

The identification of the core dimensions of expert problem solving in commercial property valuation is shown to have implications for valuation practice, education and continued research. The valuation practice environments need to develop mechanisms to provide time that would enable these multi-dimensions of professional competence to be developed. Further work is needed to expand and refine the model across expert practice in other specialty areas of valuation practice.

This study expands the current understanding of valuation process to areas of expertise that have received less coverage in behavioural valuation literature, that is, the central role of knowledge and cognition and how these are integrated for effective valuation problem solving and decision making.

The property valuation process involves the property valuer expressing expertise in reaction to a client' instruction. However, there are instances where clients, driven by self-interest, impose their will to influence valuers into returning property valuation figures that are not the true reflection of the valuer's assessment. This paper set out to revisit the issue of client influence in property valuation by conducting a scoping review to establish key findings, gaps, implications and solutions.

In total, 21 articles on client influence published from 1997 till date were systematically obtained from Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar and through citation searching and reviewed through a “Patterns, Advances, Gaps, Evidence for practice and Research recommendations (PAGER)” framework. Further analysis and visualisation were performed using VOSviewer software.

This study found that based on the number of studies, the issue of client influence has received empirical attention, which is few and far between, with financial institutions identified as the major culprits in most of those studies. One core reason for this is the stakes involved in the finance sector, which relies on property valuation for loan disbursement and performance measurement. Furthermore, previous studies have focused on identifying the issue through the lens of the property valuer without giving recourse to the client's perspective on what may drive the issue.

This study provides evidence that the issue of client influence persists, with some elements of bias in the methodology. Furthermore, the solutions proffered have focused on the valuer and have not been tested to ascertain their effectiveness. Future studies can consider examining the issue from the perspective of financial institutions.

This study is one of the first review studies on client influence on property valuation. It is also the first to identify a pattern in client influence studies that points to the issue being perpetuated by financial institutions. Furthermore, it is the first in recent time to reveal how limited study has been conducted in the area as well as the solutions which have neither been tested nor implemented.

Automated valuation models have been in use at least for the last 50 years in both academia and practice, while automated valuation recently re-emerged as very important with the rise of digital infrastructure. The current state of the art, therefore, justifies the dual contributions of this paper: organising existing knowledge and providing a new framework.

This paper provides much-needed analysis and synthesis of the accumulated body of knowledge by proposing an updated classification of automated valuation approaches based on two criteria, and a taxonomy adapted to new trends. The latter requires a paradigm shift from models to automated valuation systems. Both classification and taxonomy arose after literature review.

This paper provides a framework for an explicit context under which automated valuation is carried out. To do so, authors propose a definition of automation valuation systems; contextualise the differences among theories, approaches, methods, models and systems present in automated valuation and introduce a classification of automated valuation approaches and a non-hierarchical taxonomy of automated valuation systems.

Perhaps, a systematic literature review process instead of a selective list of 100 references could additionally validate the proposed classification and taxonomy.

The new framework, underlying various dimensions of the automated valuation process, can help practitioners surpass judging models based purely on their predictive accuracy. Also, the automated valuation system is a more generic term that can better accommodate future research coming from a multitude of disciplines, more diverse business areas and enlarged variety of practical users.

This is the first paper that develops a taxonomy of automated valuation systems.

The purpose of this paper is to establish an optimum mix of liquid, publicly traded assets that may be added to a real estate portfolio, such as those held by open-ended funds, to provide the liquidity required by institutional investors, such as UK defined contribution pension funds. This is with the objective of securing liquidity while not unduly compromising the risk-return characteristics of the underlying asset class. This paper considers the best mix of liquid assets at different thresholds for a liquid asset allocation, with the performance then evaluated against that of a direct real estate benchmark index.

The authors employ a mean-tracking error optimisation approach in determining the optimal combination of liquid assets that can be added to a real estate fund portfolio. The returns of the optimised portfolios are compared to the returns for portfolios that employ the use of either cash or listed real estate alone as a liquidity buffer. Multivariate generalised autoregressive models are used along with rolling correlations and tracking errors to gauge the effectiveness of the various portfolios in tracking the performance of the benchmark index.

The results indicate that applying formal optimisation techniques leads to a considerable improvement in the ability of the returns from blended real estate portfolios to track the underlying real estate market. This is the case at a number of different thresholds for the liquid asset allocation and in cases where a minimum return requirement is imposed.

The results suggest that real estate fund managers can realise the liquidity benefits of incorporating publicly traded assets into their portfolios without sacrificing the ability to deliver real estate-like returns. However, in order to do so, a wider range of liquid assets must be considered, not just cash.

Despite their importance in the real estate investment industry, comparatively few studies have examined the structure and operation of open-ended real estate funds. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to analyse the optimal composition of liquid assets within blended or hybrid real estate portfolios.

Cross-national variation in institutional environments adds uncertainty to foreign operations, which in turn affects international strategy decisions such as when to enter a market, the entry mode used if entering, as well as the performance of foreign entries. Although all firms are exposed to the influence of a host country's institutional environment, firms exhibit differential responses to this influence based on resident knowledge and capabilities. Managers in a multinational firm must therefore work to align their strategies with both the hazards and opportunities they face in a given institutional environment, as well as with the firm-specific knowledge and capabilities at their disposal. Rather than taking institutions as an immutable constraint when making decisions, a firm can cultivate and exploit its ability to successfully manage diverse institutional hazards in its host country environments.