Corporate Real Estate Ownership and Productivity Uncertainty

This article empirically tests the relationship between corporate real estate (CRE) holdings and productivity risks of firms. Using a large sample of public listed U.S. firms for the period from 1984 to 2011, we show that CRE ownership is significantly and negatively correlated with productivity risks of firms. Firms with high‐productivity risk own less CRE assets. When testing dynamic changes to CRE holdings, we estimate a significant and positive elasticity of CRE investments of 5.2% in response to cash flow shocks. If the adjustment cost is high, high‐risk firms are expected to hold less CRE assets, so that they could reduce potential losses associated with CRE holdings when negative productive shocks occur.     

Tax Reform and the Value of Real Estate Income Property

This paper examines the effect of recent proposals for tax reform (Treasury I and Treasury II) on the tax benefits and value of real estate income property. The effect on tax benefits is measured by the effective tax rate, and the potential impact on value is measured by the capitalization rate (user cost). The analysis of Treasury I provides insight into the effect of a tax-neutral system on real estate since this proposal comes close to meeting the criteria of tax neutrality. The importance of debt in evaluating tax neutrality is also shown. The paper demonstrates that the interaction between tax law changes and the way interest rates adjust to inflation are critical to the conclusions.     

租购并举政策背景下青年群体房屋租购意愿及行为经济学解读

结合租购并举政策的政策背景,对青年群体进行了大范围的抽样调查,分析了青年群体的租赁与购买意愿,以及其影响因素,并利用行为经济学原理,分析了其消费倾向背后的心理动机,最后对租购并举政策的落地实施提出了政策建议。     

Auction versus Negotiated Sale: Evidence from Real Estate Sales

We offer a theoretical and empirical comparison of auctions and negotiated sales. We first build a simple model to show that auctions generate a higher relative price than negotiated sales when demand for the asset is strong, when the asset is more homogeneous and when the asset attracts buyers with higher valuations. Using data from property sales in Singapore, we find support for our theoretical predictions. In addition, we find that auctions do not necessarily generate a higher price premium for foreclosed properties than for nonforeclosed properties.     

Prospective Changes in Tax Law and the Value of Depreciable Real Estate

The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 significantly reduced the taxation of income-producing properties by accelerating tax depreciation on both new and, especially, existing properties. A partial reversal of the 1981 legislation appears likely. To provide some insight into the possible effects of a decrease in tax depreciation of income-producing properties, two potential tax changes are analyzed: an increase from fifteen to twenty years in the tax service lives of both new and existing properties and an increase for existing properties only. Both residential and commercial/industrial properties are considered.     

Empirical Evidence on Shareholder Value and the Sale-Leaseback of Corporate Real Estate

This study examines the valuation effect of the sale-leaseback of corporate real estate on the stock prices of the selling and purchasing firms. The issue tested is whether the sale-leaseback transaction offers a net benefit to the corporate seller/lessee or purchaser/lessor. The empirical evidence suggests that the sale-leaseback of corporate real estate has substantial benefits for the seller/lessee common stockholders. Additionally, the sale-leaseback transaction produces an insignificant loss for the corporate purchaser/lessor.     

Tax Structure and Natural Vacancy Rates in the Commercial Real Estate Market

A number of studies have postulated that the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA 1981) was responsible for the dramatic overbuilding that occurred between 1981 and 1986, primarily because returns became less sensitive to "real" demand. While there has been much research on how equilibrium or "natural" vacancy rates in the real estate market are determined, beginning with Rosen and Smith's seminal paper in 1983, virtually none of this work has dealt with the impact of the tax environment. This study makes an initial attempt to answer this question with respect to equilibrium vacancies resulting from tenant (or owner) turnover. A formal model is developed that considers as an objective function the landlord's desire to maximize his/her after-tax equity returns in an environment of monopolistic competition in which individual projects face downward-sloping demand curves, owing to market conditions and a degree of heterogeneity among tenants in search costs or some other characteristic. The natural vacancy rate is shown not to depend directly upon the tax environment, but to depend indirectly upon it only to the extent that equilibrium market rents are lowered. The nature of the vacancy response depends critically upon the shape of the tenant demand response relationship upon its transition to a lower-rent region. This response is interactive with the degree of turnover and supply responsiveness within individual markets.     

Product Market Competition and Corporate Real Estate Investment under Demand Uncertainty

This article theoretically and empirically analyzes the interactions among corporate real estate investment, product market competition and firm risk. In our model, firms own strategic real estate or lease generic real estate. Our model predicts that strategic real estate ownership is positively correlated with industry concentration and negatively related to demand uncertainty. Also, firm risk is higher for firms with more strategic real estate operating in a more concentrated market. This prediction arises because smaller investments induce greater market competition, which effectively eliminates the right tail of the firm's profit distribution. We provide strong empirical support for our predictions. In particular, firm value is more volatile in less competitive markets for a given level of demand uncertainty.     

Corporate Transparency and Firm Growth: Evidence from Real Estate Investment Trusts

Using a panel data set of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), we find corporate transparency to be positively associated with REIT growth. These results suggest that greater transparency facilitates firm growth by relaxing information‐based constraints on external financing. The magnitude of this effect is larger in the equity market than in the debt market. Moreover, the sensitivity of investment to cash flows is decreasing in transparency, evidence that transparency relaxes liquidity constraints. Finally, we find more transparent REITs are less likely to crash.     

论房产税改革对房地产市场的调控效应

房地产业是我国的新兴产业,但目前的房地产市场呈现出市场失灵现象。基于房地产市场本身所固有的特性,文章认为,通过对房产税的改革,可以有效地调控房地产市场,为房地产市场持续、健康、有序、均衡地发展创造良好的环境。     

The Gains from Corporate Selloffs: The Case of Real Estate Assets

Recent financial economics literature has hypothesized that variations in market structure influence the distribution of gains from corporate restructuring between buyers and sellers. We test this hypothesis using data on restructuring involving real estate assets by isolating the effects depending on multiple versus single bidders, acquisition frequency and transaction type. While we find gains for both buyers and sellers, the buyers gain only when they make few purchases. Those firms pursuing an acquisition strategy show no gains around the specific acquisition announcements. Additionally, both buyers and sellers are more likely to have a positive reaction to the announcement when the transaction is property rather than a division or subsidiary.     

The Effect of Corporate Governance on Investment: Evidence from Real Estate Investment Trusts

This study investigates the relation between firms' investment choices and various governance mechanisms, using a sample of real estate investment trusts (REITs). We find evidence that the responsiveness of REITs' investment expenditures to their opportunities depends on their corporate governance structures. Within the set of governance mechanisms that we examine, we find particularly strong links between investment behavior and ownership. Specifically, we find that the investment choices of REITs are more closely tied to Tobin's q if they have greater institutional ownership or if they have lower director and officer stock ownership. These results are consistent with institutional owners monitoring the firm's investment policies as well as with high insider ownership allowing managers to follow their own investment agendas.     

Real Estate Investment Acquisition Rules for Life Insurance Companies and Pension Funds: A Survey

Real estate comprises the major wealth of the United States as well as the world. Life insurance companies and pension funds are rapidly becoming major investors in real estate due to their large portfolios and annual cash inflows. Aggregate inflows of life insurance companies and pension funds are estimated to be about 150 billion dollars per year. Increasing amounts of these funds are believed to be going into real estate investments. This study surveys life insurance companies and pension managers on all facets of their real estate investments. The survey covers real estate portfolio size and type, portfolio composition, investment by property type, international investments, before-tax analysis, after-tax analysis, diversification strategies, computer usage, holding period assumptions and criteria for obtaining mortgages, equity positions and construction loans. The results of this study are then compared and contrasted with previous studies.     

Tax Reform and Organizational Forms for Holding Investment Real Estate: Corporation vs. Partnership

Following the ERTA of 1981, partnership ownership of real estate dominated corporate ownership. This study concludes that the Tax Reform Act of 1986 provides incentive for holding real estate investments that produce sizable tax losses and/or that are eligible for large tax credits in corporate rather than partnership form. Perpetuity cash flow models are employed initially to identify key tax and cash flow variables favorable to each organizational form. The perpetuity assumption is then relaxed to consider a more representative real estate investment. A sensitivity analysis examines the extent to which the base case results are dependent on the assumed values of selected model parameters.     

Real Estate Returns and Inflation

The ability of assets to protect an investor from purchasing power risk due to inflation has received a good deal of attention in the literature recently. The focus of much of this research has been on the properties of common stocks as inflation hedges. Bodie [1976] finds that the real return on equity is negatively related to both anticipated and unanticipated inflation; a similar result is obtained by Fama and Schwert [1977] . Bernard and Frecka [1983] examine individual common stock returns and find that the majority exhibit this negative relationship. This paper uses similar logic to examine the ability of a well-diversified portfolio of real estate to hedge against anticipated and unanticipated inflation.     

实物期权在房地产投资决策中应用研究

房地产项目投资具有不可逆性、高度不确定性和管理的灵活性,运用传统的净现值法不能挖掘出项目投资的这些性质所带来的价值,而应用实物期权方法进行房地产投资决策研究,不仅考虑到了房地产投资的不确定性,还体现了投资决策者的柔性管理和战略投资的价值.文章分析了传统净现值法的一些不足,介绍了实物期权的基本理论,并采用了B-S期权定价模型对房地产投资决策过程中蕴含的增长期权进行了案例分析,使得房地产投资决策更加科学合理.     

Adjustments in the Real Estate Market

AREUEA is pleased to acknowledge the support of the National Association of REALTORS in the preparation of this issue. We are particularly grateful to John Tuccillo, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at NAR, for recognizing the importance of this research area and encouraging these studies. The editors would also like to acknowledge the continuing support of their colleagues at The Ohio State University and of the Homer Hoyt Institute.     

Assessing the Performance of Real Estate Auctions

This article investigates the performance of real estate auctions relative to negotiated sales. It uses a repeat-sales methodology to control for unobserved differences in the quality of auction properties. Properties auctioned in Los Angeles during the 1980s boom sold at an estimated discount of 0%–9%, while sales in Dallas following the oil bust obtained discounts of 9%–21%. This evidence is consistent with the theoretical prediction that the auction discount increases in downturns when a seller trades-off a longer expected selling time in a search market against an immediate auction sale. The study finds no evidence of the declining price anomaly.     

Subprime Lending and Real Estate Prices

This article establishes a theoretical and empirical link between the use of aggressive mortgage lending instruments, such as interest‐only, negative‐amortization or subprime mortgages, and the underlying house prices. Such instruments, which come into existence through innovation or financial deregulation, allow more borrowing than otherwise would occur in previously affordability‐constrained markets. Within the context of a model with an endogenous rent‐buy decision, we demonstrate that the supply of aggressive lending instruments temporarily increases the asset prices in the underlying market because agents find it more attractive to own or because their borrowing constraint is relaxed, or both. This result implies that the availability of aggressive mortgage lending instruments magnifies the real estate cycle and the effects of fundamental demand shocks. We empirically confirm the predictions of the model using recent subprime origination experience. In particular, we find that regions that receive a high concentration of aggressive lending instruments experience larger price increases and subsequent declines than areas with low concentration of such instruments. This result holds in the presence of various controls and instrumental variables.