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This study aims to address the gap by empirically exploring how residential construction-production progress, which includes project commencement, under-construction and project completion, responds dynamically to fluctuations in house prices.

A vector autoregressive model and an impulse response function are applied to simulate and analyse the circle of the stage-responsiveness of residential construction to residential property price dynamics in the state of Victoria, Australia. The quarterly numbers of dwelling units commenced, under-construction and completed are used as the proxy for the residential construction activities at three stages over the construction progress.

The analysis indicates that the dynamics are essentially transmitted throughout the construction process and can substantially impact the pace of production progress. The findings from this study provide an empirical base that should be useful in developing price-elasticity and production theories applicable to the context of residential property construction.

The findings described above have been generated basically by examining the case of Victoria, Australia at a macro level. The generalisation of the research output needs to be verified further by future researchers using data collected from other regions/countries. Nevertheless, the reliability of the conclusions with particular practical implications can be substantially improved by future researchers by analysing more markets and production proxies at the activity level.

Based on new empirical findings, this research argues that building activity (i.e. under construction) played as a gateway between the construction and housing sectors, via which the inter-responsiveness of the housing supply in terms of construction activities and housing prices are transmitted.

This research firstly attempts to explore the inter-responsiveness between the real estate and construction sectors. A simulated circle of the stage-responsiveness of residential construction to residential property price dynamics is proposed, which can serve as a significant foundation for developing the theory of construction production.

This paper examines the inter‐relationship between profitability, cost of capital and capital structure among property developers and contractors in Hong Kong. Whilst major indigenous local developers are among the largest and the most profitable in the world, their contractor counterparts are generally small and nowhere near as profitable. An analysis of financial data suggests that gearing is generally higher among contractors than developers. However, it does not mean that contractors borrow more than developers. Indeed they do not need to borrow as much as developers even if they have the assets to pledge as collateral. Contractors do not have to pay for high land costs, and they obtain project finance from developers through interim payments in lump sum contracts that are widely adopted in the industry. Their high gearing reflects more their low equity base than high level of debts. Their costs of equities are about double the developers’, probably due to their usually low or negative profit margins. This conclusion is substantiated by further regression analysis of the data. The findings indicate that capital gearing is positively related with asset but negatively with profit margins. This article concludes with a discussion on implications of such profitability divide between the two sectors on the unequal relationship between developers and contractors, and on their competitiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the cash‐in‐hand consumer culture in the property and construction sector. The conventional assumption has been that consumers using cash‐in‐hand transactions are rational economic actors doing so simply to save money. Here, this is evaluated critically.

To do this, evidence from a 2007 Eurobarometer survey involving 26,659 face‐to‐face interviews in 27 European Union member states is reported.

The finding is that saving money is the sole motive of consumers in just 38 per cent of cash‐in‐hand transactions in the European property and construction sector, one of several rationales in 38 per cent of exchanges and not cited as a rationale in the remaining 24 per cent of cases. Besides, saving money, consumers engage in cash‐in‐hand transactions to circumvent the shortcomings of formal sector provision in terms of its availability, speed and quality, as well as for social and redistributive rationales.

This paper reveals the need for in‐depth qualitative research to unravel consumers' complex and heterogeneous rationales for using this sphere.

The implication is that changing the cost/benefit ratio confronting consumers when choosing to use the cash‐in‐hand economy is unlikely to be successful since cost is, in most cases, not their only rationale. Instead, attention needs to be given to improving the availability, speed, reliability and quality of formal sector provision and dealing with cash‐in‐hand work conducted for social and redistributive purposes.

This paper refutes the assumption that goods and services are acquired from the cash‐in‐hand economy solely in order to save money.

Construction industry and the built environment professions play an important role in contributing to society’s improved resilience. It is therefore important to improve their knowledgebase to strengthen their capacities. This paper aims to identify gaps in the knowledgebase of construction professionals that are undermining their ability to contribute to the development of a more disaster resilient society. The paper also provides a series of recommendations to key actors in the built environment on how to more effectively mainstream disaster resilience in the construction process.

The paper reports the findings of 87 stakeholder interviews with: national and local government organisations; the community; non-governmental organisations, international non-governmental organisation and other international agencies; academia and research organisations; and the private sector, which were supplemented by a comprehensive analysis of key policies related to disaster resilience and management. The findings were validated using focus group discussions that were conducted as part of six organised stakeholder workshops.

The primary and secondary data generated a long list of needs and skills. Finally, the identified needs and skills were combined “like-for-like” to produce broader knowledge gaps. Some of the key knowledge gaps identified are: governance, legal frameworks and compliance; business continuity management; disaster response; contracts and procurement; resilience technologies, engineering and infrastructure; knowledge management; social and cultural awareness; sustainability and resilience; ethics and human rights; innovative financing mechanisms; multi stakeholder approach, inclusion and empowerment; post disaster project management; and multi hazard risk assessment. The study also identifies a series of recommendations to key actors in the built environment on how to more effectively mainstream disaster resilience in the construction process. The recommendations are set out in five key themes: education, policy, practice, research and cross-cutting.

This study is part of an EU funded research project that is seeking to develop innovative and timely professional education that will update the knowledge and skills of construction professionals in the industry and enable them to contribute more effectively to disaster resilience building efforts.

The paper provides an extensive analysis of the gaps in the knowledgebase of construction professionals that are undermining their ability to contribute to the development of a more disaster resilient society. Accordingly, the paper recommends major changes in construction education, research, policy and practice with respect to mainstreaming disaster resilience within the construction process.

A more efficient land and property market is fundamental to solving Africa’s apparently endemic problems with real property development. Despite similar problems in other developing countries, they are more pronounced in sub‐Saharan Africa and, in the absence of appropriate remedial measures, will inevitably escalate as population growth gathers momentum. This paper highlights the need for Africa to develop the necessary institutions to support the property and construction sectors, to facilitate infrastructure delivery and promote sustainable growth and development.

The basic purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between the sustainability of construction on the one hand and market value, worth and property investment performance on the other hand. This paper aims to analyse price movements and price differences caused by different property characteristics.

Based on the estimated log‐linear hedonic regression model, a hedonic price index is calculated. Price movements subject to different property characteristics are examined by constructing various conditional hedonic price indexes.

The results reveal that, high‐quality flats or flats within preferred locations clearly outperform their competitors in terms of price stability during an overall market downturn. However, it is also shown that contemporary building descriptions or specifications of transactions within property databases are not yet sufficient and need to be widened to meet forthcoming challenges. Therefore, an “integrated building performance approach” is introduced and a proposal for the step‐wise improvement of building descriptions is made.

The paper shows that efforts need to be undertaken by the property profession in combining and transferring financial performance data along with information that is indicative of a building's contribution to sustainable development.

The paper offers insights into the relationship between the sustainability of construction and market value.

In the rise of offices designed to support activity-based working (ABW), parts of industry have fully transitioned to open-plan environments and then later to unassigned seating, whereas other parts, such as tertiary education, are still in the process of moving away from individual offices. There are a few relevant studies to understand how occupants from industry sectors with different levels of adoption of ABW perceived environments designed to support this way of working. This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge gap by providing insight into workers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction from open-plan offices designed to support ABW along with the key predictors of perceived productivity.

A data set of 2,090 post-occupancy evaluation surveys conducted in five sectors – tertiary education, finance, construction, property/asset management and design/engineering – was analyzed. ANOVA and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted for the survey questionnaires. First, ANOVA tests were conducted for the whole sample with perceived productivity as the dependent variable. A seven-point Likert scale with five theoretical factors was generated with all survey questionnaires. CFA was performed to show the factor loadings. In addition, regression analyses were carried out for each of factor item taken as the independent variable, where perceived productivity was the dependent variable. Key sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction per sector were analyzed and differences between occupants reporting a negative or positive impact on their productivity were also investigated. Finally, open-ended comments were analyzed to show the key sources of dissatisfaction based on open-ended comments.

Workers from construction were the most satisfied, followed by finance and tertiary education. Occupants from all industry sectors consistently rated their workspaces highly on biophilic and interior design. Distraction and privacy received the lowest scores from all sectors. Open-ended comments showed mismatches between spatial and behavioral dimensions of ABW both for satisfaction and perceived productivity. Interior design was the strongest predictor for perceived productivity for all sectors. Findings dispel the notion that ABW implementation may not be suitable for certain industries, as long as the three key pillars of ABW are fully implemented, including design, behavior and technology.

This paper provides insight into workers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction from open-plan offices designed to support ABW in different industry sectors along with the key predictors of perceived productivity.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the rationale for integrating sustainability issues into property valuation theory and practice and to provide initial suggestions for valuers on how to account for sustainability issues within valuation reports.

The authors emphasise the key role of valuation professionals and of the valuation process itself in achieving a broader market penetration of sustainable construction. It is explained that, on the one hand, property valuation represents the major mechanism to align economic return with environmental and social performance of property assets, and thus to express and communicate the advantages and benefits of sustainable buildings. On the other hand, it is explained that gradual changes in market participants' perceptions in favour of sustainable buildings must be reflected within the property valuation and associated risk assessment process (otherwise valuers would produce misleading price estimates). The authors identify both the financial benefits and risk reduction potential of sustainable design as well as valuation input parameters that would allow these benefits to be reflected in property price estimates.

The authors show that the main reasons for immediately and rigorously integrating sustainability issues into property valuation are as follows: more sustainable patterns of behaviour are urgently necessary to sustain the viability of the Earth's ecosystems; a huge untapped market potential exists for sustainable property investment products and consulting services; sustainable buildings clearly outperform their conventional competitors in all relevant areas (i.e. environmentally, socially and financially); neglecting the benefits of sustainable design leads to distorted price estimates; and reflecting sustainability issues in property price estimates is already possible and the validity of this decision depends solely on the valuer's capability and sophistication to explain and justify his/her assumptions within the valuation report. However, it is also shown that efforts need to be undertaken to improve the description of property assets in transaction databases in order to provide the informational databases necessary to empirically underpin a valuer's decision to assign a “valuation bonus” to a sustainable building or a “valuation reduction” to an unsustainable/conventional one.

The paper postulates that valuation reports should be extended to include the following additional elements: a clear description of the availability of certain sustainability‐related property characteristics and attributes; a statement of the valuer's opinion about the benefits of these characteristics and attributes; and a statement of the valuer's opinion about the impact of these benefits and/or risks on property value.

The purpose of this paper is to export the role of professional bodies within the property industry in Australia in bringing about gender equality. In particular the policy objectives of the various professional bodies is analysed and contrasted with the level of genres equality demonstrated within the governance structures of the organisations at national and regional level.

The paper analyses the annual reports of the leading property professional bodies in Australia to identify any gender equity policy objectives and to identify the balance between male and female representation in the governing boards of the associations.

The research shows that while a few organisations have made some statements regarding the need for change to a more inclusive property industry these objectives are not reflected within the governance structure of the organisations. It is therefore evident that significant attitudinal and structural change will be required to bring about equality within the property industry.

The research is limited to the Australian property and construction industry and the relevant boards at national and state level.

The paper highlights the need to address gender inequality at the senior management level within the professional associations that govern the property profession. The professional associations are uniquely placed to show leadership in promoting gender equality and should be adopting policy within the organisations charter to being about a shift in attitudes to women within management roles in the property industry.

The issue of gender equity is highly topical and this paper adds to the research in this area. It highlights the important role that professional associations could take in bringing about change, but reveals that many professional bodies have a worse gender balance at the governance level than many of their member firms.

The paper is the first to analyse the gender mix within the professional bodies in Australia which govern and advise the property and construction industries. As such it reveals that little progress has been made in bringing about gender equality in the profession.

The aim of this research is to answer whether or not wholesale interest rates, such as the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), can be used as an effective policy instrument to influence construction output. Developers and contractors borrow to finance construction and are charged retail interest rates, determined by the lending bank. The study investigated the relationship between LIBOR and construction industry output.

The study identified two time series, LIBOR and annual construction output and a number of regressions were run using the first differences to observe whether a change in LIBOR alone had a significant influence on construction output lagged by one to four years.

No significant relationship was found between changes in LIBOR and the annual change in construction output, regardless of the number of years lagged.

The policy implication of this research shows that control of demand for construction by government using wholesale interest rates is unlikely to succeed. Banks' lending to developers depends on other factors, such as retail interest rates, risk management and expectations.

The value of this research is that it supports the view that government policy needs to focus on stimulating construction demand, using real projects rather than monetary policies, such as interest rate manipulation.