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Property valuers in England and Wales face a difficult task; they must collect and assimilate data from a variety of sources which differ widely with regard to quality, currency and coverage. This is because of legislative restrictions on access to public sector data sources and organizational constraints on access to property data within the private sector, such as confidentiality and commercial secrecy. Proposes a system for the dissemination of property data for valuation and other property‐related procedures, namely, a National Land Information Service (NLIS). Suggests that a NLIS should be developed using geographical information system technology. Describes a methodology which shows how a spatial analysis technique available on a GIS was used to examine the influence of accessibility on property value.

Adequate reliable property market data are critical to the production of professional and ethical valuations as well as better real estate transaction decision-making. However, the availability of reliable property market information represents a major barrier to improving valuation practices in Ghana and it is regarded as a key challenge. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the sources and reliability of property market information for valuation practice in Ghana. The aim is to provide input into initiatives to address the availability of reliable property market data challenges.

A mixed methods research approach is used. The study, thus, relies on a combination of a systematic identification and review of literature, a stakeholder workshop and a questionnaire survey of real estate valuers in Accra, Ghana’s capital city to obtain requisite data to address the aim.

The study identifies seven property market data sources used by valuers to obtain market data for valuation practice. These are: valuers own database; public institutions; professional colleagues; property owners; estate developers; estate agents; and the media. However, access to property market information for valuations is a challenge although valuers would like to use reliable market data for their valuations. This is due to incomplete and scattered nature of data often borne out of administrative lapses; non-disclosure of details of property transactions due to confidentiality arrangements and the quest to evade taxes; data integrity concerns; and lack of requisite training and experience especially for estate agents to collect and manage market data. Although professional colleagues is the most used market data source, valuers own databases, was regarded as the most reliable source compared to the media, which was considered as the least reliable source.

Findings from the study imply a need for the development of a systematic approach to property market data collection and management. This will require practitioners to demonstrate care, consciousness and a set of data collection skills suggesting a need for valuers and estate agents to undergo regular relevant training to develop and enhance their knowledge, skills and capabilities. The establishment of a property market databank to help in the provision of reliable market data along with a suitable market data collection template to ensure effective and efficient data collection are considered essential steps.

The study makes a significant contribution to the extant knowledge by providing empirical evidence on the frequency of use and the reliability of the various sources of market data. It also provides useful insights for regulators such as the Ghana Institution of Surveyors (GhIS), the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and other stakeholders such as the Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy (CASLE) and the Government to improve the provision of reliable property market information towards developing valuation practice not only in Ghana, but across the Sub-Saharan Africa Region. Also, based on these findings, the study proposes a new property market data collection template and guidelines towards improving the collection of effective property market data. Upon refinement, these could aid valuation practitioners to collect reliable property market data to improve valuation practice.

Building information modelling (BIM) offers rich opportunities for property professionals to use information throughout the property life cycle. However, the benefits of BIM for property professionals are largely untapped. BIM was developed by the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector to assist in managing design and construction data. As these technologies mature and evolve, so does the opportunity for other professional groups to use data within, or linked to, BIM models. This paper aims to explore the potential for corporate real estate managers (CREM) and investment surveyors to use data contained in BIM models and building management systems, which could help these professionals with strategic planning, portfolio rationalisation and acquisitions.

This is a scoping study to explore the potential to expand the scope of BIM to other professional activities. As such, the research adopted a Delphi approach with a series of workshops with experienced stakeholders in Australia and England. Qualitative research is inductive and hypothesis-generating. That is, as the researcher assimilates knowledge and information contained in the literature, ideas and questions are formed, which are put to research participants, and, from this process, conclusions are drawn.

It is technologically feasible for some property professionals, such as CREM, to use some data contained within BIM, and linked building management systems. The types of data used by property professionals were identified and ranked in importance. Needs are varied, both in the range of data and the points in the property life cycle when they are required. The benefits identified include potentially accessing and using more reliable and accurate data in professional tasks; however, challenges exist around the fidelity of the data and assurances that it is current.

The key limitations of the research were that the views expressed are those of a select group of experienced practitioners and may not represent the consensus view of the professions and industry as a whole. The limitations and criticisms of focus group data collection are that individuals holding strong views may dominate the sessions.

The findings show that expanding access to BIM could enable some property professionals, including CREM, to utilise relevant data that could improve the quality and accuracy of their professional services. A simple initial system could be trialled to ascertain the value of the data. Over time, the availability of data could be extended to allow more professionals access. Furthermore, there is potential to link BIM to other digitised property data in the future.

To date, no one has considered the practicality or potential utility of expanding the access to data contained in 3D BIM models to property professionals, nor has anyone considered which data would be useful to them. The value of using BIM data is that, as more property stock is delivered and maintained via BIM-enabled processes, it will be possible for a wider range of professionals such as CREM and investment surveyors to offer more accurate advice and services to clients.

Challenges of property data in developing markets have been reported by several authors. However, a deep understanding of the actual nature of this phenomenon in developing markets is largely lacking as in-depth studies into the actual nature of data challenge in such markets are scarce in literature. Specifically, the available literature lacks clarity about the actual nature of data challenges that developing markets pose to valuers and how this affects valuation practice. This study provides this understanding with focus on the Lagos property market.

This study utilises a qualitative research approach. A total of 24 valuers were selected using snowballing sampling technique, and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted. Data collected were analysed using thematic analysis with the aid of NVivo 12 software.

The study finds that the main data-related challenge in the Lagos property market is the lack of database of market property transactions and not the lack or absence of transaction data as it has been emphasised in previous studies. Other data-related challenges identified include weak property rights institution with attendant transaction costs, underhand dealings among professionals, undocumented charges, undisclosed information, scarcity of data relating to specialised assets and limited access to the subject property and required documents during valuation. Also, the study unbundles the factors responsible for these challenges and how they affect valuation practice.

The study has implication for practice in the sense that the deeper knowledge of data challenges could provide insight into strategy to tackle the challenges.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge by offering a fresh and in-depth perspective to the issue of data challenges in developing markets and how the peculiar nature of the real estate market affects the nature of data challenges. The qualitative approach adopted in this study allowed for a deep enquiry into the phenomenon and resulted into an extended insight into the peculiar nature of data challenges in a typical developing property market.

The demand for accurate property value estimation by valuation report end users has led to a shift towards advanced property valuation modelling techniques in some property markets and these require a sizeable number of data set to function. In a situation where there is a lack of a centralised transaction data bank, scholars and practitioners usually collect data from different sources for analysis, which could affect the accuracy of property valuation estimates. This study aims to establish the suitability of different data sources that are reliable for estimating accurate property values.

This study adopts the Lagos metropolis property market, Nigeria, as the study area. Transaction data of residential properties are collected from two sources, i.e. from real estate firms (selling price) and listing prices from an online real estate company. A portion of the collected data is fitted into the artificial neural network (ANN) model, which is used to predict the remaining property prices. The holdout sample data are predicted with the developed ANN models. Thereafter, the predicted prices and the actual prices are compared so as to establish which data set generates the most accurate property valuation estimates.

It is found that the listing data (listing prices) produced an encouraging mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) values compared with the firms’ data (selling prices). An MAPE value of 26.93 and 29.96 per cent was generated from the listing and firms’ data, respectively. A larger proportion of the predicted listing prices had property valuation error of margin that is within the industry acceptable standard of between ±0 and 10 per cent, compared with the predicted selling prices. Also, a higher valuation accuracy was recorded in properties with lower values, compared with expensive properties.

The opaqueness in real estate transactions consummated in developing nations could be attributed to why selling prices (data) could not produce more accurate valuation estimates in this study than listing prices. Despite the encouraging results produced using listing prices, there is still an urgent need to maintain a robust and quality property data bank in developing nations, as obtainable in most developed nations, so as to achieve a sustainable global property valuation practice.

This study does not investigate the relationship between listing prices and selling prices, which has been conducted in previous studies, but examines their suitability to improve property valuation accuracy in an emerging property market. The findings of this study would be useful in property markets where property transaction data bank is not available.

Earlier studies have suggested the creation of a central database of concluded property transactions as a panacea to the property data debacle. It is in this regard that the purpose of this paper is to examine the perception of potential users of centralised property database on the consideration for the design and management of such database.

Questionnaires were administered on 190 property practitioners (referred as estate surveying and valuation firms) in Lagos property market. Frequency index, frequency distribution and percentage were employed for data analysis.

The result showed that respondents preferred a web-based databank and free access to the information in the databank by those who recorded their market data in it. They also preferred uniform recording standard in the databank, an interface that must be user friendly and secure to prevent unauthorised user from gaining access, amongst others. The practitioners also preferred that their professional body manage the databank when it is created.

The paper provides useful insights into creating a property database that will improve accessibility to property data in opaque markets.

There is still little or no empirical research on framework/end-users’ requirements for the creation of property transaction database in emerging property markets.

This paper seeks to assess issues of data and the extent to which property markets are becoming more transparent in Central and Eastern Europe, discussing stages in the transformation and evolution of markets with reference to sources of real estate information.

Current perspectives on data sharing and drivers for change in Central and Eastern Europe draw on evidence from structured interviews with key market players in the region. This is supported by a consideration of secondary data sources.

The analysis indicates that information on stock characteristics, notably offices, has developed since the start of the 1990s but there remains an absence of performance benchmarking in the investment market. Conclusions highlight the significant process of change but identify the need for property investment markets to be more accurately measured and tracked.

Limitations arise from data, in particular restricted time series data, lack of disclosure of data due to their intrinsic value, the perceived benefit of holding a competitive advantage and issues arising from the compatibility between various data sources.

The paper considers the relationship between the availability of market data and the development of properly functioning markets in Central and Eastern Europe; the attributes that have encouraged the development, availability and effective use of property market data; and the impacts of data availability on patterns of property market development in Central and Eastern Europe.

Given the centrality of data and information to the evaluation and operation of policies to reduce carbon emissions, the purpose of this paper is to investigate potential sources of data within in the UK on the commercial building stock in terms of its physical characteristics, financial performance, energy consumption and environmental performance. The research aimed to increase understanding of the potential sources of data on property attributes, financial performance and energy use or environmental performance, with a particular emphasis on evaluating their strengths and weaknesses in terms of scope, quality, availability and practicability.

This is an explorative, qualitative study that uses semi‐structured interviews conducted with 11 different data holding organisations.

Whilst public sector organisations have the potential to provide the data required for large samples, there are major barriers to obtaining and linking the different databases. Data on the three key data elements (prices, attributes and environmental performance) tend to be split between different governmental agencies. There are likely to be substantial problems (and costs) of linking the databases due, in particular, to definitional differences. There is a conflict between government's public good objective of increasing knowledge of the environmental performance of buildings and its objective of maximising revenues from the commercial exploitation of data. Since the private sector organisations that hold data are commercially motivated, the samples that they have gathered are largely client driven and, consequently, tend to be partial, particular, proprietary, private and product‐related.

Since pricing studies are central to evaluating the effectiveness of eco‐labelling in property markets, this paper improves one's understanding of the role of information and data barriers to improving the allocative efficiency of commercial property markets.

Provides an outline of research seeking to apply to computer assisted mass appraisal (CAMA) model capable of use within a geographic information system (GIS). The end product will be a working GIS/valuation integrated model. The model, in an operational context, can be utilized for property taxation purposes, to facilitate the rating and revaluation of residential properties in Northern Ireland. As the value of land and property is a function of economic, legal, physical and locational factors, consequently access to comprehensive, reliable and up‐to‐date transaction evidence is a prerequisite to property valuation. Valuation techniques depend on the collection and analysis of relevant data. Historically, the application of these techniques took place within a non‐spatial environment. Ultimately, market data support any estimate of value. Data searches and collection can prove both time consuming and expensive in relation to the fee earning potential of a valuation report. GIS can facilitate, in a spatial and aspatial context, the storage, manipulation and analysis of data, in a fraction of the time previously required. Current techniques for the mass appraisal of property, and for the prediction of residential property values, can be enhanced by utilizing the data handling capacity of GIS. Integration of a mass appraisal model within a GIS will add value to the valuation process.

With a focus on Lagos property market, the purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that influence accessibility to data for valuation and investment analysis in Nigeria. This was with a view to improving accessibility to property data in the market, thereby enhancing investment appraisal practice.

Primary data utilized for the study were sourced through the use of questionnaire administered on property practitioners (referred to as estate surveying and valuation (ESV) firms) in Lagos property market. A total of 190 ESV firms were selected using stratified random sampling based on their geographical location. Relative significance index (RSI), frequency distribution and principal component analysis (PCA) were employed for data analysis.

A total of 19 factors were identified as affecting accessibility to data. Confidentiality attached to property data by practitioners was ranked as the most significant factor with RSI of 0.81. The next three factors were lack of cooperation within members of professional body (0.79), accuracy of data (0.76) and duty of care to client (0.75), while the least ranked factor was duplication of data set (0.63). All the 19 variables were further grouped into six principal factors using PCA, namely, economic, attitudinal, ethical, legal, administrative and technical factors; with each factor explaining the following variance, 16.75, 16.1, 13.64, 12.78, 10.51 and 7.95, respectively.

The paper’s results will enable stakeholders to address the challenges to data accessibility in Lagos property market and similar opaque markets elsewhere thereby enhancing property data accessibility and investment analysis.

The paper is an attempt to examine the factors affecting accessibility to data identified in different studies holistically together in a single study and from the perspective of an emerging property market like Nigeria.