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Commercial real estate (CRE) is a major investment asset. Yet detailed information on the value of investible CRE in different cities is lacking. The authors propose an innovative method to measure the value of investible CRE using transaction datasets.

The authors take transaction prices and index them to produce a time series of values for each asset. The sum of the values at each point represents the value of investible CRE at that date. The authors’ method is applied to transaction data for New York, London and Toronto.

London had the highest proportions of institutional and foreign ownership, and its turnover was more resilient to the downturn in global CRE following the GFC. The results illustrate the potential of the authors’ method to shed light on the characteristics of investible CRE markets.

The authors use data from Real Capital Analytics (RCA). This provides good coverage of transactions for investible CRE in the cities that the authors examine, but data from other sources might lead to different estimates.

Measuring the value and turnover of investible CRE is important for portfolio strategies that account for the size and liquidity of investment markets. Knowledge of these features, and of ownership patterns, provides a better understanding of market operation.

The authors’ modification of the perpetual inventory technique is simple, novel and practical. The authors propose this approach given the absence of a building-by-building inventory of investible CRE in many markets.

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).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between occupiers’ satisfaction with the property management service they receive and the financial performance of commercial real estate.

The study uses occupier satisfaction data for 240 UK commercial properties collected over a 12-year period and the annual total returns achieved by those properties. Various statistical techniques are employed to assess whether increasing occupier satisfaction leads to greater returns for investors. These include comparing excess returns and risk-adjusted returns with occupier satisfaction at each property to assess whether superior property management generates outperformance (“positive alpha”). The study also investigates whether the relationship between occupier satisfaction and returns is the same across all sectors and whether it is affected by market conditions.

A positive correspondence is found between benchmark outperformance and occupier satisfaction. The relationship is similar for all sectors of commercial property and is particularly strong during the Global Financial Crisis, indicating that paying attention to satisfying the needs of occupiers has particular benefits during periods when the supply of commercial real estate exceeds demand.

The sample of properties was restricted to those for which occupier satisfaction data had been collected by RealService Ltd and whose owners permitted access to the financial performance results. This meant that the properties belong to only three landlords, all UK REITs that care sufficiently about occupier satisfaction to commission studies. Thus the findings might not apply to all commercial properties. The mechanism by which the positive relationship between satisfaction and financial performance occurs is not tested, but the conventional mechanisms of reputation and customer loyalty (the “service-profit chain”) are discussed.

The findings suggest that it is worthwhile for landlords, or property managers acting on their behalf, to understand the needs of their occupiers in order to deliver the level of service that those occupiers desire. Leases in the UK are generally “triple net” and the total returns used for this analysis are net of property management costs, so the positive relationship between satisfaction and performance is not the result of economising on service delivery. A further implication is that valuers should take more account of occupier satisfaction when assessing the capital value of a property, from which total returns are assessed.

Demonstrating the links between customer service, customer satisfaction and business profitability is rarely attempted because of the many confounding factors that affect profitability. UK listed real estate companies are typically reluctant to reveal the financial performance of individual properties, and information about occupiers’ satisfaction is not generally available. The authors were fortunate to be granted access to a time series of such data, and to be able to demonstrate that attention to delivering a property management service that satisfies occupiers is likely to bring financial rewards to the owners of the property.

The authors outline a framework that captures the channels through which physical climate risks could affect cash flows and pricing of income-producing real estate. This facilitates detailed consideration of how the future performance of real estate investments could be affected by such risks.

This is a literature-based investigation that draws on work commissioned by UNEP-FI (Clayton et al., 2021a, b). It extends this work to consider in more detail the channels through which climate risks may impact property performance and the implications for the valuation community.

Recent empirical studies have identified more instances where pricing is reflecting both current and anticipated climate risks. Market valuations cannot properly incorporate climate risk without clear evidence that it is priced by market participants, but valuers can advise clients on the potential for future impacts.

While inferences can be made from studies of residential real estate, more research on commercial real estate pricing and climate risk is required to assist valuers and their clients, as well as other stakeholders in the real estate market.

Differences between a Market Value and an Investment Value context are considered, and how valuers could and should account for climate risk in each setting is discussed with reference to existing professional standards and guidance.

The article synthesises a wide range of literature to produce a framework for the channels by which real estate values could be influenced by climate risk.

The purpose of this paper is to understand what affects the liquidity of individual commercial real estate assets over the course of the economic cycle by exploring a range of variables and a number of time periods to identify key determinants of sale probability.

Analyzing 12,000 UK commercial real estate transactions (2003 to 2013) the authors use an innovative sampling technique akin to a perpetual inventory approach to generate a sample of held assets for each 12 month interval. Next, the authors use probit models to test how market, owner and property factors affect sale probability in different market environments.

The types of properties that are most likely to sell changes between strong and weak markets. Office and retail assets were more likely to sell than industrial both overall and in better market conditions, but were less likely to sell than industrial properties during the downturn from mid-2007 to mid-2009. Assets located in the City of London more likely to sell in both strong and weak markets. The behavior of different groups of owners changed over time, and this indicates that the type of owner might have implications for the liquidity of individual assets over and above their physical and locational attributes.

Variation in sale probability over time and across assets has implications for real estate investment management both in terms of asset selection and the ability to rebalance portfolios over the course of the cycle. Results also suggest that sample selection may be an issue for commercial real estate price indices around the globe and imply that indices based on a limited group of owners/sellers might be susceptible to further biases when tracking market performance through time.

The study differs from the existing literature on sale probability as the authors analyzed samples of transactions drawn from all investor types, a significant advantage over studies based on data restricted to samples of domestic institutional investors. As well, information on country of origin for buyers and sellers allows us to explore the influence of foreign ownership on the probability of sale. Finally, the authors not only analyze all transactions together, but the authors also look at transactions in five distinct periods that correspond with different phases of the UK commercial real estate cycle. This paper considers the UK real estate market, but it is likely that many of the findings hold for other major commercial real estate markets.

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.

Structured sale and leasebacks and corporate property asset outsourcing are often claimed to have benefits that seem to be inconsistent with financial theory. Eight such UK deals are analysed to investigate the impact on corporate value. The results show that impacts are contingent ‐ on the capital structure of the firm, on the use of the capital raised and on market attitudes towards management and the sector. Two apparently similar deals can have quite different outcomes: benefits to shareholders and bondholders cannot be simply assumed.

Price indices for commercial real estate markets are difficult to construct because assets are heterogeneous, they are spatially dispersed and they are infrequently traded. Appraisal-based indices are one response to these problems, but may understate volatility or fail to capture turning points in a timely manner. This paper estimates “transaction linked indices” for major European markets to see whether these offer a different perspective on market performance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The assessed value method is used to construct the indices. This has been recently applied to commercial real estate datasets in the USA and UK. The underlying data comprise appraisals and sale prices for assets monitored by Investment Property Databank (IPD). The indices are compared to appraisal-based series for the countries concerned for Q4 2001 to Q4 2012.

Transaction linked indices show stronger growth and sharper declines over the course of the cycle, but they do not notably lead their appraisal-based counterparts. They are typically two to four times more volatile.

Only country-level indicators can be constructed in many cases owing to low trading volumes in the period studied, and this same issue prevented sample selection bias from being analysed in depth.

Discussion of the utility of transaction-based price indicators is extended to European commercial real estate markets. The indicators offer alternative estimates of real estate market volatility that may be useful in asset allocation and risk modelling, including in a regulatory context.