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Drawing on the structural hole-bridging perspective of network theory, this paper aims to examine the adaptation strategies undertaken by housing industry actors following the recent pandemic.

A qualitative case study was adopted as the research methodology for this research. Data collected through online interviews involving 20 participants was used as primary data, while document analysis (both online and printed documents) was used as secondary data. The interviews were guided by the visual vignette method.

This study’s findings indicate that a health-based crisis like COVID-19 triggers housing developers to act outside their comfort zones. They undertake arbitrage and collaborative brokerage strategies to cope with business uncertainties. This study revealed the contextual embedding of the owner-occupier market (consumer market) and the investor market (business market). This study also revealed that firms that aggressively located structural holes and built new relationships in B2C and B2B markets before the COVID-19 pandemic were well-equipped to face turbulent times.

The innovative strategies that housing developers adopt are transferable and applicable to other industries and countries. Therefore, awareness of these strategies is essential for industry practitioners, especially those badly hit by health-based crises.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical study that combines relationship management, structural holes, the housing market and their implications for crisis adaptation. This study examined the grossly understudied phenomenon of demand for housing, which is a durable good, during a turbulent time. The findings of this study provide beneficial guidance for firms, buyers and policymakers facing COVID-19 and/or other similar crises.

High-density development requires large land parcels, but fragmented land ownership can impede redevelopment. While earlier compact city development in Sydney occurred on large-scale brownfield sites, redeveloping and re-amalgamating older strata-titled properties is now integral to further densification. The purpose of this study is to examine collective sales activity in one Sydney suburb where multiple strata-titled redevelopments and re-amalgamations have been attempted. The authors explore how owners navigate the process of selling collectively, focusing on their experience of legislation introduced to facilitate this process, the Strata Schemes Development Act 2015 [New South Wales (NSW)].

By reviewing sales listings, development applications and media coverage, and interviewing owners, lawyers and estate agents, the authors map out collective sale activity in a case study area in Sydney’s northwest.

Strata collective sales are slow and difficult to complete, even when planning and market drivers align. Owners find the Strata Scheme Development Act 2015 (NSW) difficult to navigate and it has not prevented strategic blocking attempts by competing developers. The long timelines required to organise collective sales can result in failure if the market shifts in the interim. Nonetheless, owners remain interested in selling collectively.

This case study is important for understanding the barriers to redevelopment to achieve a more compact city. It highlights lessons for other jurisdictions considering similar legislative changes. It also suggests that legislative change alone is insufficient to resolve the planning challenges created by hyper-fragmentation of land through strata-title development.

This paper investigates the extent to which commercial property valuers in the UK refer to Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) professional standards and guidance on the inclusion of sustainability in valuation reports. Data collection, analysis and reporting related to sustainability attributes is examined, as well as the perceived importance of these attributes to clients and any value impacts that are associated with them.

An online survey of UK commercial property valuers was conducted from July to September 2019. The survey included both structured and open-ended questions.

Reference to RICS standards and guidance on sustainability has improved since earlier research. However, progress on data collection is still limited. At the time of the survey, UK valuers indicated that sustainability attributes were of more importance to owner-occupiers than investors and lenders. UK valuers also indicated that, out of a range of sustainability attributes, only certification was influencing market value (MV) and investment value (IV) to any great extent.

The online survey had 53 responses and this limited the ability to draw definitive conclusions. Hence, whilst the results may be indicative of the perceptions of some valuers of the significance of sustainability-related matters in the UK, the sample is not large enough to be considered representative of the opinions of property valuers per se in the UK.

Explicit reflection of sustainability in market or investment values is still limited in the UK valuation practice, but there are challenges faced by valuers that need further investigation, including difficulties in pricing sustainability attributes.

This is the first empirical investigation of the perception of sustainability by valuers in the UK commercial property market since the 2012 survey reported by Michl et al. (2016).

This paper aims to explore what can be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic about adaptable, functional housing design that supports seniors’ resilience. This paper considers how physical and design features enable seniors to stay safe, develop coping strategies, give and receive care and maintain social connections.

A qualitative research strategy incorporating thematic analysis was used, involving interviews and one focus group with seniors and interviews with housing providers and community organisations supporting seniors. Forty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with 54 seniors aged over 60 years living independently, not in aged care. Interviewees were selected to cover a range of ages and housing circumstances. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 20 organisations.

The physical, amenity and design aspects of the living environment that support seniors’ well-being and resilience during a pandemic are: the ability to receive essential goods and services in the home; sufficient space and storage; flexible and adaptable living spaces; access to private indoor and outdoor space; ability to garden and grow food; having an outlook or view; functional heating, ventilation and appliances; and dwelling location allowing access to green spaces, food stores and services. The ability of housing to facilitate social connections is a fundamental enabler of seniors’ resilience.

This paper contributes to knowledge about physical and design aspects of the dwelling that enable protection and care in a pandemic and how that can help to future-proof housing. Its focus on enabling seniors’ resilience through housing recognises the growing significance of structural population ageing for housing design and delivery and the central role of housing to ageing-in-place policies that underpin health and welfare provision.

Delay in housing adaptation is a major problem, especially in assessing if homes are suitable for the occupants and in determining if the occupants are qualified for the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG). This paper describes the development of two self-administered intelligent integrated assessment tools from the DFG Adapt-ABLE system: (1) The Home Suitability Assessment Platform, which is a preventive mechanism that allows assessment of the suitability of homes based on occupants’ mobility status and (2) an indicative assessment platform that determines if the applicants are qualified for the DFG to prevent lengthy delays.

The adopted method aligned with a development study approach: a grounded literature review, a severity measurement approach, two stakeholder engagement workshops, four brainstorming sessions and four focus group exercises. The system development relied on Entity–Relationship Diagram (ERD) technique for data structures and database systems design. It uses DFG context sensitivity with alignment with DFG guidance, interlinkages and interoperability between the assessment tools and other platforms of the integrated Adapt-ABLE system.

The assessment tools are client-level outcomes related to accessibility, usability and activity based on the assessment process. The home suitability platform shows the percentage of the suitability of a home with assessment results that suggest appropriate action plans based on individual mobility status. The indicative assessment combines the function of referral, allocation, assessment and test of resources into an integrated platform. This enables timely assessment, decision-making and case-escalation by Occupational Therapists based on needs criteria and the eligibility threshold.

These assessment tools are useful for understanding occupants’ perception of their physical housing environment in terms of accessibility, suitability and usability based on basic activities of daily living and their mobility status. The indicative self-assessment tool will substantially cut down the application journey. The developed tools have been recommended for use in the CSJ Disability Commission report and the UK government Guidance on DFGs for local authorities in England.

Home insurance is widely recognised as a tool for mitigating economic risk associated with natural disasters. This study aims to analyse the influence of homeowners’ home insurance knowledge (both objective and subjective types), perceived benefits (PB) and perceived vulnerability towards disaster loss (PVUL) on their intention to purchase (ITP).

This research makes use of survey data collected from 394 respondents (the homeowners) residing in various parts of India. The structural equation modelling is used to verify 11 hypotheses proposed in the study.

The findings indicate that both objective knowledge (OK) and subjective knowledge (SK) of home insurance have significant influence on homeowners’ benefit perception and PVUL. The homeowners’ PB of home insurance negatively affect PVUL. The OK of home insurance has a stronger influence on homeowners’ ITP home insurance than SK while the homeowners benefit perceptions and PVUL significantly affects homeowners’ ITP home insurance. These findings confirms that if homeowners are knowledgeable about home insurance, they perceive the plans as more beneficial and feel less vulnerable about catastrophic events, resulting in positive intentions towards purchasing them.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first comprehensive research that assesses the Indian homeowners’ knowledge, PB and PVUL in influencing their ITP home insurance. The finding of this paper will assist both public and private insurance companies in India and similar markets in designing and implementing effective strategies to sell home insurance policies.

This research investigated Australian property valuers' identification and consideration of physical climate change risks in valuation practice.

Thirty Australian valuer members of the Australian Property Institute from a variety of specialisations were interviewed. The semi-structured interviews explored climate change risks and the extent of risk investigation and consideration in valuation practice. The analysis utilised the Moser and Luers (2008) climate risk preparedness framework as a lens to evaluate current valuation practice in Australia.

The analysis reflects that while physical risks are easily identified and engaged with by valuers, correspondingly, there is a lack of understanding of and engagement with, climate change risks. This supports the need for better information sources and guidance to inform valuers of climate change risks and the development of specific mechanisms for the consideration of such risks to be included in valuation processes, practices and reports.

The research was limited by its sample size and qualitative approach. Therefore, the research is not a representative opinion of the Australian profession; however, the analysis provides the perspective of a range of valuers from across Australia with different valuation specialisations.

This research has established that valuers have the potential to be prepared to address climate change in their professional capacity, as described by Moser and Luers (2008). However, they are constrained by information communication, access and detail and subsequent market awareness of information on climate change risk exposure on properties. There is a need for further support, guidance, information and tools, as well as awareness-raising, to enable valuers to accurately identify and reflect all risks affecting a property in the process of valuation.

This research provides the first investigation into the consideration of climate change in valuation practice. Property stakeholders—owners, investors, financiers and occupiers—are escalating their climate change risk analysis and reporting for property portfolios and organisations. This research suggests that valuers also need to be aware of the changing dynamics of market reporting and decision-making related to climate change risks to ensure appropriate reflection in valuation practice.

Brazil’s regional inequality is an important topic due to the large and persistent differences in development between states and the high levels of inequality in the country. These variations in development can potentially render survey data inaccurate since the significance of capital income varies across the states. Besides, previous studies incorporating tax and national accounts data globally have mainly focused on measuring the income distribution at the country-level. This approach can limit the understanding of inequality, especially when considering large countries such as Brazil.

The methodology used to construct these estimates follows the guidelines of the Distributional National Accounts, whose core goal is to provide income distribution measures consistent with macroeconomic aggregates and harmonized across countries and time. The procedure has three main steps: first, it corrects the survey’s underrepresentation of top incomes using tax data. Then, it accounts for national income items not included in the survey or tax data, such as imputed rents and undistributed profits. Finally, it ensures that all components match the national income.

Compared to survey-based estimations, the results reveal a new angle on the state-level inequality. This study indicates that Amazonas, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have a more concentrated income distribution. The top 1\% of earners in these states receives around 28\% of total pre-tax income, while the top 10\% receive nearly 60\%. On the other end, Amapá (AP), Acre (AC), Rondônia (RO) and Santa Catarina (SC) are the states where the income distribution is less concentrated. There were no significant changes in the income distribution across the states during the period analyzed.

This study combines survey, tax and national accounts data to construct new estimates of Brazil’s state-level income distribution from 2006 to 2019. Previous results only considered income captured in surveys, which usually misses a significant part of capital incomes. This limitation may bias comparisons as capital income has different importance across the states. The new estimates represent the income of top groups more accurately, account for the entire national income and enable to compare regional inequality levels consistently with other countries.