The dynamics and measurement of commercial property depreciation in the UK

Beginning with an extensive literature review, this new research summary report analyses the process of rental depreciation, its effect on the performance of rents, and the impacts of capital expenditure on depreciation. It is based on an analysis of more than 700 commercial and industrial properties and newer property types and it is the most comprehensive national study of rental depreciation since the 1986 CALUS report. The report will be of interest to valuers, fund managers, institutional investors and their advisors and researchers.

Destination UK: international property investment and the role of taxation

This research examines whether or not foreign property investors enjoy tax and other advantages over their UK counterparts and how, if such advantages exists, UK quoted property companies can redress the balance. Current issues such as lack of liquidity, inequalities amongst asset classes, and differences in tax burden are examined in detail. The report will be of interest to property investment specialists, valuers, fund managers, institutional investors and their advisers.

Future shock or e-hype?: the impact of online shopping on UK retail property

This research examines the impact of ecommerce on sales and rental values and on the future space and ownership/leasing requirements of UK retailers for 2000-2005. The independent study, commissioned by BCSC (and funded by BCSC Educational Trust with support from the RICS Education Trust), included a major postal survey, follow-up interviews, a retail focus group, and shopper survey and case study of Cyberton, a town in the South East of England. The study was conducted by the Research Department of The College of Estate Management between June and December 2000.

eRPUK 2003: eCommerce and Retail Property in the UK: third annual benchmarking survey

This new survey, which has just been completed and includes brand new data, has been funded by the RICS Education Trust and the European Shopping Centre Trust. It follows up our 2000 survey of UK retailers, investors and developers. The report presents results from our new 2001 survey. This continuing benchmark series of studies includes an extensive review of developments in ecommerce and retail in Europe and the USA. The survey reveals a cooling in attitude towards ecommerce in the UK, but there is rapid growth in some sectors and polarisation and marginalisation of secondary centres are likely to increase. In Europe the growth of a three tier system of ecommerce 'pioneers', 'followers' and 'laggards' is becoming established, and the research also reveals results from a recent joint survey on US and UK retailers conducted with Colorado State University. There is a danger of complacency as UK online sales (in percentage terms) now outstrip USA.

Building the web: the Internet and the property profession

The report examines the development of the Internet and Intranets in the world of business and commerce, drawing on previous literature and research. The new technology is explained, and key issues examined, such as the impact of the Internet on the surveyor's role as 'information broker' and its likely effect on clients' property requirements. The research is based on an analysis of 261 postal questionnaire responses and eight case study interviews from a sample of general practice and quantity surveying practices and corporates. For the first time the property profession is examined in detail and the key drivers, barriers and benefits of Internet use are identified for a range of different sized organisations.

Testing for bubbles in indirect property price cycles

Speculative bubbles are generated when investors include the expectation of the future price in their information set. Under these conditions, the actual market price of the security, that is set according to demand and supply, will be a function of the future price and vice versa. In the presence of speculative bubbles, positive expected bubble returns will lead to increased demand and will thus force prices to diverge from their fundamental value. This paper investigates whether the prices of UK equity-traded property stocks over the past 15 years contain evidence of a speculative bubble. The analysis draws upon the methodologies adopted in various studies examining price bubbles in the general stock market. Fundamental values are generated using two models: the dividend discount and the Gordon growth. Variance bounds tests are then applied to test for bubbles in the UK property asset prices. Finally, cointegration analysis is conducted to provide further evidence on the presence of bubbles. Evidence of the existence of bubbles is found, although these appear to be transitory and concentrated in the mid-to-late 1990s.

Linkages between property asset returns and interest rates: evidence for the UK

This paper considers the effect of short- and long-term interest rates, and interest rate spreads upon real estate index returns in the UK. Using Johansen's vector autoregressive framework, it is found that the real estate index cointegrates with the term spread, but not with the short or long rates themselves. Granger causality tests indicate that movements in short term interest rates and the spread cause movements in the returns series. However, decomposition of the forecast error variances from VAR models indicate that changes in these variables can only explain a small proportion of the overall variability of the returns, and that the effect has fully worked through after two months. The results suggest that these financial variables could potentially be used as leading indicators for real estate markets, with corresponding implications for return predictability.

The cyclical relations between traded property stock prices and aggregate time-series

This paper examines the cyclical regularities of macroeconomic, financial and property market aggregates in relation to the property stock price cycle in the UK. The Hodrick Prescott filter is employed to fit a long-term trend to the raw data, and to derive the short-term cycles of each series. It is found that the cycles of consumer expenditure, total consumption per capita, the dividend yield and the long-term bond yield are moderately correlated, and mainly coincident, with the property price cycle. There is also evidence that the nominal and real Treasury Bill rates and the interest rate spread lead this cycle by one or two quarters, and therefore that these series can be considered leading indicators of property stock prices. This study recommends that macroeconomic and financial variables can provide useful information to explain and potentially to forecast movements of property-backed stock returns in the UK.

Does orthogonalization really purge equity based property valuations of their general stock market influences?

This paper uses a recently developed nonlinear Granger causality test to determine whether linear orthogonalization really does remove general stock market influences on real estate returns to leave pure industry effects in the latter. The results suggest that there is no nonlinear relationship between the US equity-based property index returns and returns on a general stock market index, although there is evidence of nonlinear causality for the corresponding UK series.

The impact of economic and financial factors on UK property performance

This paper employs a vector autoregressive model to investigate the impact of macroeconomic and financial variables on a UK real estate return series. The results indicate that unexpected inflation, and the interest rate term spread have explanatory powers for the property market. However, the most significant influence on the real estate series are the lagged values of the real estate series themselves. We conclude that identifying the factors that have determined UK property returns over the past twelve years remains a difficult task.

What Tenants Want: UK occupiers’ requirements when renting commercial property and strategic implications for landlords

Businesses need property in order to generate turnover and profits. If real estate owners are to be able to provide properties and related services that are desirable, it is crucial that they understand tenants’ requirements and preferences. Changes in the way businesses operate might well lead to an overall reduction in space requirements in all sectors. Faced with reductions in demand, landlords will find themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace for tenants. Of the array of strategies available to landlords, what strategies should they employ for maximum effect? This paper examines what United Kingdom tenants want from commercial property (retail, industrial and office). The first part provides an analysis of data from several hundred interviews with occupiers of commercial properties owned by some of the largest UK real estate investment companies. Results are presented for each of the asset classes separately. The second part compares the findings with previous research and discusses the strategic implications for landlords.

Measuring European property investment performance: comparing different approaches

Purpose – 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. Design/methodology/approach – 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. Findings – 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. Research limitations/implications – 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. Originality/value – 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.