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The purpose of this study is to describe and analyse the methods and standards of valuation used by Swedish professional property valuers when appraising commercial properties and factors affecting those standards. The study builds on a 2002 comparative study of valuers in four European countries by McParland et al. (2002), but focuses specifically on property valuers in Sweden.

In 2010-2011, a questionnaire was used in face-to-face interviews with about half of the authorised property valuers in Sweden. Another questionnaire was emailed to all authorised property valuers in Sweden 2015 and again about half participated.

Analysis of the results shows some new trends in used and preferred standards and methods. Although Swedish valuers still rely mainly on local guidelines, they now increasingly use international standards and company guidelines, which may indicate a growing, if indirect, form of internationalisation. Swedish valuers still use discounted cash flow as their primary method, but their use of comparative methods has increased.

The data in this comparative study of valuation standards and methods over time used were collected from a specific group of property valuers authorised through the professional Swedish organisation Samhällsbyggarna (Swedish Professionals for the Built Environment), which contributes to an insight in the presiding of the harmonisation of valuation methods and standards.

Improving valuation accuracy, especially for sale and acquisition purposes, remains one of the key targets of the global real estate research agenda. Among other recommendations, it has been argued that the use of technology-based advanced valuation methods can help to narrow the gap between asset valuations and actual sale prices. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the property valuation methods being adopted by Australian valuers and the factors influencing their level of awareness and adoption of the methods.

An online questionnaire survey was conducted to elicit information from valuers practising in Australia. They were asked to indicate their level of awareness and adoption of the different property valuation methods. Their response was analysed using frequency distribution, χ² test and mean score ranking.

The results show that the traditional methods of valuation, namely, comparative, investment and residual, are the most adopted methods by the Australian valuers, while advanced valuation methods are seldom applied in practice. The results confirm that professional bodies, sector of practice and educational institutions are the three most important drivers of awareness and adoption of the advanced valuation methods.

There is a need for all the property valuation stakeholders to synergise and transform the property valuation practice in a bid to promote the awareness and adoption of advanced valuation methods, (e.g. hedonic pricing model, artificial neural network, expert system, fuzzy logic system, etc.) among valuers. These are all technology-based methods to improve the efficiency in the prediction process, and the valuer still needs to input reliable transaction data into the systems.

This study provides a fresh and most recent insight into the current property valuation methods adopted in practice by valuers practising in Australia. It identifies that the advanced valuation methods could supplement the traditional valuation methods to achieve good practice standard for improving the professional valuation practice in Australia so that the valuation profession can meet the industry’s expectations.

The importance of sustainability in the property industry is well recognised, and many studies have proved the existence of sustainability premiums in real estate markets. Valuers play the most pivotal role in reflecting the market, however despite the efforts of both academic and professional bodies to improve valuer knowledge and perceptions of sustainability there remains significant limitation of consideration of sustainability in valuation within the profession. The purpose of this paper is to investigate valuation practice through examining institutional grade commercial valuers’ approaches and consideration of sustainability in valuation.

This research used a case study approach and interviewed institutional grade commercial valuers in Melbourne, Australia, exploring their consideration of sustainability in their valuation reports for commercial properties. A semi-structured interview technique was utilised with responses using qualitative content analysis that investigated the processes used, knowledge and incorporation of sustainability in valuation practice.

The study has found substantial limitations in the incorporation of sustainability in property valuation in Melbourne’s real estate market, comprising valuers’ limited knowledge, reluctance to consider sustainability in the valuation process, poor verification or investigation of sustainability considerations, client instructions did not direct valuers to consider sustainability, lack of data and limited tools for detailed analysis.

Although a small sample, the data redundancy found in this research suggests a level of consensus on certain aspects of practice within the sector in Melbourne. This corroborates similar findings from a large-scale study of valuers and property professionals in Europe and the UK (Michl et al. 2016).

There is urgent need for more education and direction in the consideration and incorporation of sustainability in valuation for valuers. Enhancing the enforcement of guidelines from professional bodies is also crucial in order to deepen the analysis of sustainability in property valuation.

The research has provided an in-depth perspective of valuation practice in the commercial sector, that identifies and expands on the barriers in regard to limited incorporation of sustainability in property valuation reports, physical reporting, comparative analysis and depth of discussion. Further, it highlights the limited consideration of guidance notes in regard to sustainability from professional bodies.

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.

Seeks to tackle in the broadest possible terms the legal and practical aspects of fraud and negligence claims in relation to residential mortgage valuations and surveys carried out by the surveying profession. Includes underwriting, lenders claims, defective property and valuation for mortgage purposes. cites case law regarding the difference between open market value and mortgage calculation. Concludes that the valuation for mortgage purposes may lead to an entirely different conclusion from open market value.

The relationship between sustainability and value in property has been a major area of investigation over the past decade. However, in spite of the extant literature and research, the connections made by valuers in practice of the value relationship are still unresolved. The purpose of this paper is to investigate, in the Australian context, valuers’ perception of the relationship between sustainability and value; and their experience and knowledge of sustainability in valuation practice.

The research investigates valuers’ perception and knowledge of sustainability and its inclusion in valuation practice in Australia. The approach uses a longitudinal survey of valuers from 2007 to 2015 tracking valuers’ knowledge, understanding, inclusion of sustainability reporting and the perceptions of the relationship between sustainability and market value.

This paper presents findings from a longitudinal survey that has been conducted in Australia since 2007, identifying changes between 2007, the height of the property market and sustainability engagement prior to the global financial crisis, and the subsequent years to 2015. The growth of sustainability in the property market is significant, however, valuers’ knowledge and reporting on sustainability is not demonstrating the same level of development. As a result, this is inhibiting valuers reporting on sustainability and has implications for practice and treatment of market values.

This research highlights the need to examine how to assist valuers to more rapidly develop knowledge and experience to reflect the implications of change in practice. Current approaches being developed in the UK and Europe, like the introduction of RenoValue professional development programs and guidance documents, to assist valuers to develop their knowledge needs to be implemented in the Australian environment as current approaches are inadequate, and steps need to be taken in order to assist their development of knowledge and experience as the market demonstrates growth and acceptance of sustainability. This research identifies the need to re-examine how professional development is undertaken and knowledge developed by those practicing in the profession in Australia.

This longitudinal survey is the only research that has spanned a substantial period of time attempting to ascertain valuers’ perception of the relationship between sustainability and value; and attempts to track the knowledge development of valuers in the context of sustainability. The findings identify how the market is developing and adhering to a product model development theory, however, also identifies more fundamental issues and implications for valuation praxis, in the development of knowledge and ability of valuers to adapt to change and reflect these valuations.

This paper aims to stimulate debate amongst valuers and users of valuations over what action is needed to ensure the provision of the valuation services that the modern economy requires.

This paper looks at developments and trends affecting the nature of and the need for valuation services around the world in the short to medium term.

There is a bright future for those valuers who understand the dynamics in their market and anticipate or always respond to change. The consequence of failing to respond is inevitable decline in the long term. More automated valuation processes and products have an important role to play in the future provision of valuation services. The valuation community must rise to the challenge of developing a professional class of valuers in emerging economies. Governments should insist on good quality valuation in their jurisdictions as they have a major role to play in consumer protection. The leading professional organisations in the world must ensure that collectively and individually they attract the best possible candidates into it.

Whatever the drivers of change in the valuation marketplace, it is fundamental for the survival of professional valuation services that the public interest is protected. This paper considers the challenges and opportunities in a range of areas brought about by these changes – a vision for valuation.

Investigates the extent and possible causes of variance in property investment valuations for commercial lending purposes within the UK. A literature review was undertaken and a questionnaire survey was circulated to individuals involved in the commercial property valuation process in order to gauge professional opinion. The survey revealed that the main cause of variance was found to be a result of the individual valuer’s “behavioural influences”. The survey also found that parties to a valuation instruction widely accept the margin of error principle, the legal manifestation of valuation variance, as a test of negligence.

The pricing of professional service has been identified as one of the factors influencing the quality of service and willingness of clients to pay. However, the issue of service pricing is hardly seen as an object of discourse in real estate literature, especially among valuation studies, as it is obtainable in other fields. In Nigeria, it has become the practice for some sets of clients, especially financial institutions, to fix valuers’ remuneration based on the fact that these clients have market advantage. This practice and some other issues around pricing of valuers’ services have been going on for some years with little or no research insights from academics. The purpose of this paper is to examine the pricing system of valuation services within the Lagos property market with the aim of providing information to better valuation practice.

This study assumes an interpretive paradigm and adopts a qualitative research approach. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 registered valuers practising within the Lagos property market. Snowballing sampling technique was employed in selecting the registered valuers who were active in the practice of valuation in the study area. Data collected were analysed using thematic analysis with the aid of NVivo 12 software.

This study finds that the pricing system for valuation services in the study area can be broadly categorised under “negotiation” and “fixed rate” systems while the use of the “professional scale of charges” is more or less non-existent. The study also reveals various forms by which these systems are practised, and issues associated with them as well as the effects they have on valuation practice. The study further reveals the factors responsible for the continuous striving of the present pricing system which includes valuers’ inability to enforce the professional scale, competition in the market, buyers’ market syndrome, the game of numbers and the banks’ strategy to protect their customers. The authors also found that the low pricing of valuation service poses challenges to valuation practice and encourages unprofessional conducts that affect the quality of valuation output. The study also provides, albeit limited, an evidence of the relationship between valuation fee and quality of valuation.

This study is limited to Lagos property market and only the practising valuers. Insights from other major cities and stakeholders in service pricing like clients and regulatory authority may produce more insightful results.

This study provides important insights into valuers’ experience in the area of service pricing and how this affects the delivery of professional services. It also serves as the research blueprint in giving research attention to the service pricing in property valuation practice.

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.