Authors' Perceptions and Preferences Among Real Estate Journals

Journal editors who want to attract the best research must understand authors' perceptions of their journals. In this survey, U.S. academic authors rank Real Estate Economics ( REE ) higher than The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics ( JREFE ) and rank The Journal of Real Estate Research ( JRER ) third. Authors perceive REE as high quality with promotion and tenure value and JREFE as providing a fair, efficient publication process. Faculty at doctoral degree-granting schools are more discerning between the journals, whereas faculty at schools with real estate degree programs are more likely to have work in all three journals rewarded. Publishing in a journal and membership in a real estate association also influence opinions.     

A Normalized Citation Analysis of Real Estate Journals

This study presents an analysis of the citation patterns and rankings for journals in real estate and related areas for the period 1990–1995. Journals were ranked based on the number of times they were cited in four base journals with adjustments for journal size and longevity. The results show that Real Estate Economics is the most cited journal among real estate publications, followed closely by the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics and the Journal of Real Estate Research . A temporal analysis reveals a shift in citations, over the time period, away from the traditional economics and practitioner-oriented journals to the academic real estate journals.     

A Note on Ranking Real Estate Research Journals

An understanding of how thirty real estate journals are perceived for promotion and tenure and for professional applicability was sought by surveying members of the two most important real estate academic organizations. Several subgroup comparisons were made revealing some common perceptions but a significant amount of disagreement as well. Among findings robust across the surveyed community were that the Journal of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (changed to Real Estate Economics in 1995) is the most important outlet for promotion and tenure and the Appraisal Journal is the most important outlet for professional applicability. Two distinct journal groupings emerged: an academic group composed of eight journals and a professional group of twenty.     

Authors' Perceptions and Preferences Among Real Estate Journals: An Editors' Note

As current editors of Real Estate Economics ( REE ) we feel it is our responsibility to offer our readers some comments regarding the preceding article by Gibler and Ziobrowski. Our comments are intended to convey our policy regarding publication of articles of this nature, as well as some relevant facts about the current publication process performance of the Journal.     

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城市别墅全享价值,五期临河珍藏火热公开 距离徐家汇仅约20分钟车程的银都名墅,以近7成的土地面积建造江南园林景观。是一座城市中的森林公园。银都名墅专门挑选30年以上的成年桦树.种植在中国居住文化里象徵阖家兴旺的竹林。     

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.     

Labor Supply,Flexible Hours and Real Estate Agents

Real estate agents have flexibility in choosing hours and employers. These responses are tested with a five‐equation recursive model. Agents choose between full‐ and part‐time work. The conditional wage measures productivity adjusted for self‐selection to each status. Hours worked in each status depend on the fitted after‐tax wage and household income, yielding flexible supply elasticities. Using a 2005 survey of 8,450 U.S. real estate agents, a year of experience raises the full‐time hourly wage by 2.5%. Conditional hours worked decline by 0.6%, implying an earnings return of 1.9% per year of experience. The labor supply elasticity for full‐time agents is 0.21; it is almost zero for part timers.     

Optimal Real Estate Portfolios

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid the problem of analyzing, evaluating and selecting real estate investments within the context of a portfolio. Most approaches simply attempt to adapt existing theory and models from the well-developed literature of securities investments. Most adaptations or extensions to real estate are not without serious problems, however, because of several fundamental difficulties relating to optimization technology inadequacies and a general lack of reliable and consistent market data.
This article deals with the major problems of utilizing some of the classic securities investment models for real estate. Further, a risk-return model is advanced which overcomes most of the fundamental problems outlined earlier in the article.     

Commercial Real Estate Returns

In the commercial real estate market, which is perceived to be relatively inefficient, investors have comparative advantages; hence there are significant costs to diversification. This paper presents for the first time a series of market (or quasi-market) returns for a large data base. This data base is believed to be the most complete commercial real estate data base yet constructed. The paper empirically evaluates the benefits of diversification along various dimensions within the commercial real estate opportunity set. The analysis confirms certain aspects of prior work concerning inflation protection and diversification opportunities while concluding that even investment grade real estate investments are heterogeneous assets.     

Parking Externalities in Commercial Real Estate

Local governments have employed a variety of strategies to reduce street congestion through an increase in parking supply. These policies have been criticized as an implicit subsidy that shifts costs from drivers to the public at large. Others have noted that parking lots and structures can lead to increased water and air pollution. However, there has not been an examination of whether parking, presumably by reducing congestion, generates external benefits. We measure whether nearby parking availability influences commercial property prices after controlling for property characteristics, including on‐site parking. We find that publicly accessible parking, such as commercial parking garages, generates significant aggregate externalities. We also find evidence of a significant complementary relationship between building and parking area in property values. This suggests that parking regulation could have a significant impact on property development through its effect on the value of the marginal square foot of building area.     

Diversification Categories in Investment Real Estate

This paper continues previous work evaluating the benefits of diversification and analyzes the various dimensions within the commercial real estate opportunity set. The database is large and extends through the 1982 downturn in property values. Due to the low levels of systematic risk, current distinctions by region and property type make little sense in a world of costly diversification. More exacting categories combining property type, SMSA growth rate and lease maturity offer promise for more efficient diversification within the real estate portfolio.     

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.     

Real Estate Fund Openings and Cannibalization

This article examines the trade‐offs in launching new real estate funds, specifically open‐end, direct‐property funds. This investment vehicle, which is designed to provide the risk‐return benefits of private market real estate, is available to retail investors in a number of countries. At the same time, these funds are also subject to liquidity risk, because they hold an inherently illiquid asset in an open‐end structure. This format presents fund‐family managers with unique challenges, particularly with the decision to open new funds. The data consist of 2,127 German fund openings across 76 fund families in 12 asset classes over the 1992–2010 period. Including a wide range of asset classes allows for a comparison between real estate and other investment objectives. We find a substantial cannibalization effect across the existing real estate funds of a family, while we note the opposite effect—i.e., flows into existing funds increase following a fund opening within the same objective—for all other asset classes. Our analysis of fund opening determinants shows that inflows mitigate the cannibalization risk for new real estate funds. Additional evidence highlights the role of scale and scope economies in real estate fund openings. Overall, the results provide new insights into the relatively large size and small number of real estate funds when compared to mutual funds dedicated to other investment objectives.     

Commercial Real Estate Leasing, Asymmetric Information, and Monopolistic Competition

We model the choice of lease type, gross lease versus net lease, in an environment in which lessees have private information with respect to their expected intensity of utilization of the leased space, and in which lessors have market power with respect to the pricing of the lease. Unless the lessor can provide operating services at lower cost than the lessee, there exists a lemons problem. We examine a market in which lessors can provide operating services at lower cost. Given asymmetric information with respect to expected lessee utilization and/or damage to the leased space, the lessor offers both a gross and net lease, where the higher expected utilization lessees select the gross lease and the lower expected utilization lessees select a net lease. Lease pricing depends on both the lessor's beliefs with respect to lessee utilization of the space and the lessor's market power. In a monopolistic market, relative to a competitive market, a lessor charges higher rent for a gross lease relative to a net lease in order to extract a portion of the gain from shifting operating services to the lessor. Given the higher rent for a gross lease, a smaller proportion of lessees (only very high utilization lessees) selects a gross lease in a monopolistic market. Therefore, the expected cost savings associated with shifting operating services/provision of maintenance to the lessor are smallest in a monopolistic market.     

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.     

Inflation and Real Estate Investment Value

It is demonstrated that the inflation rate must be reflected in the anticipated benefit flows used in investment value models. When flows are left unadjusted, a biased value estimate results. It is also shown that the actual effects of the inflation rate on investment value will depend on the relationships of original cost, the debt/equity ratio, and the level of depreciation expense. Inflation has a fundamentally negative impact on value traceable to capital gains and depreciation effects. This can be offset by the use of debt financing.     

Market Microstructure and Real Estate Returns

This paper examines the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) market microstruc-ture and its relationship to stock returns. When compared with the general stock market, REIT stocks tend to have a lower level of institutional investor participation and are followed by fewer security analysts. In addition, REIT stocks that have a higher percentage of institutional investors or are followed by more security analysts tend to perform better than other REIT stocks. Our results seem to confirm Jensen's ( 1993 , p. 868) proposition that ownership structure (that is, who owns the firm's securities) affects the value of the firm. Our findings also have implications about the well documented phenomenon that the financial performance of Commingled Real Estate Funds (CREFs) is better than that of REITs.