Research themes

Valuation, Leasing and Market Practice

A key strength of REP's research is its work on the functioning of real estate markets. Crosby and Hughes, together with Murdoch from Law, undertook two major studies for the ODPM on the operation of the code of practice for commercial leases – research which had direct policy impacts in changing market behaviour and influencing Government legislative decisions.

Baum, Crosby and McAllister's research on client influence on valuation led to the establishment of the Carsberg Committee and changes to professional valuation practice guidelines. Other valuation-focussed research examined the role of depreciation in determining rental values, the work, for the IPF, developing and expanding Law's doctoral thesis. Further funded work has examined behavioural aspects of valuation (McAllister, with colleagues from Georgia State), on the value of property forecasts (McAllister and Matysiak with colleagues from Australia) and on the accuracy of valuations as a proxy for prices (with IPD, funded by the RICS). This latter work links to the performance measurement and index construction research noted above. Work on market functioning includes D'Arcy and co-workers' research on global real estate service providers, local work on the impact of town centre shopping malls on land-use patterns (Crosby, Hughes and Lizieri) and research on real estate in transitional economies (Matysiak and doctoral student Laposa).

The changing nature of business practice alters the requirement for occupational property. Gibson and Luck recently completed research for the UK Office of Government Commerce extending earlier work by Gibson, Lizieri and Oughton on the impact of flexible working on government property requirements -a report that was circulated widely amongst Whitehall departments and influenced procurement policy.

Byrne leads a KTP project on information systems and asset management strategies based on action research with a housing association. In the private sector, Devaney and Lizieri have researched the impact of corporate outsourcing on the financial performance of companies, examining bond and share price movements, the research funded by Boots Properties.