The information content of funds from operations and net income in real estate investment trusts

This study compares the information content of funds from operations (FFO) and net income (NI) in the real estate investment trust (REIT) industry. We find that models using FFO explain more of the variance in cumulative abnormal returns around earnings announcement dates than models using NI do. We also find that the information content of FFO differs across REITs of different sizes. FFO does not provide useful information to investors in the case of large REITs. Finally, we show that the gain or loss from sales of property is relevant to valuing large REITs.     

Upzoning and value capture: How U.S. local governments use land use regulation power to create and capture value from real estate developments

The public sector can harness its authority to control land uses to secure valuable public benefits from real estate developments. This paper investigates how five major U.S. cities—Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle—are using their land use regulation powers to create and capture value for the public benefit. An analysis of the zoning and entitlement processes of the 20 largest real estate development projects in each city reveals that value has been captured from all 100 projects. Furthermore, these cities implicitly differentiated value capture into two distinct components: value creation and value capture. Among the 100 projects, cities created value for 90 projects by allowing greater density and height—a practice often referred to as “upzoning.” Distinguishing such upzoning incidences from traditional land use exaction tools is important because the added value gives local governments greater legitimacy in asking for public benefits. The experience of the five cities further revealed that value capture strategies can be customized to adapt to unique regulatory, political, and cultural contexts. Lastly, despite the fact that the majority of the upzoned projects increased density and height through project-specific negotiations, none of the cities had clear standards or evaluation frameworks for determining: how much value was created, what can be asked for in return, and who should benefit from the value captured. Cross-national scholarship on value capture can be leveraged to address these important questions.     

The performance of performance appraisal systems: understanding the linkage between appraisal structure and appraisal discrimination complaints

Abstract

Employee perceptions of the fairness of performance evaluations are critical to the success of any appraisal system. Research on performance management includes extensive studies on how bias emerges in the appraisal process. Despite this, there is no empirical evidence linking formal discrimination complaint filings – a key measure of bias - and performance appraisals. To close this gap, we conduct an empirical analysis using information on appraisal systems and discrimination complaints from the US federal government. Our findings suggest that agencies with better-designed appraisal systems will experience higher appraisal-related discrimination complaints, contrary to expectations. In particular, an expansion of training and voice opportunities are associated with an increase in appraisal discrimination complaints, while increased differentiation between performers is not consistently associated with complaints. For managers struggling with performance management, it may be better to spend time on improving performance-focused interpersonal communication rather than redesigning appraisal systems.     

Measuring destocking performance of the Chinese real estate industry: A DEA-Malmquist approach

This paper aims to measure the evolution of destocking performance of the Chinese Real Estate Industry based on a DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis)-Malmquist approach, which is seldom used in this industry in existing literature. In 2016, the Chinese government introduced a unified national destocking policy to reduce real estate inventory to save the downturn in the real estate market, but the effect was less than expected and led to soaring house prices in first-tier cities. By analysing the destocking performance over the period from 2005 to 2015, we find the following: (1) It is impossible to use a unified policy to effectively address the national destocking issue because of the difference of DMUs' destocking efficiency, input redundancy and total factor productivity score changes. (2) With the current destocking performance and investment status, the government is still ignoring the existing commercial real estate problems. (3) The redundancy of firm assets and staff indicates that zombie firms may exist and risk future unemployment in the real estate industry. (4) Despite the recently repeated government interventions in this industry, destocking performance remains falling since 2008, and problems in other regions is more severe than in central cities. (5) The financial crisis triggered by the US subprime mortgage crisis has had a great impact on China's real estate industry. The destocking performance dropped sharply in 2008, forcing the Chinese government to introduce policies to stimulate the real estate market. Policy recommendations are also put forward based on the findings.     

Performance and learning in an ambiguous environment: A study of cryptocurrency traders

We investigate the performance and learning ability of traders in an environment governed by ambiguity, such as the cryptocurrency market. Using a profit decomposition methodology, we find significant cross-sectional and temporal heterogeneity in performance. Traders do not learn to progressively increase the magnitude of returns; however, they are able to improve on their ability to realise profits as a mechanism of adaptation to survive through ambiguity. This adaptation increases as traders progress through their career. Moreover, we find evidence in support of the gambler’s fallacy. We argue that learning in ambiguous environments has limitations, allowing traders primarily to survive.     

浅谈房地产开发项目的施工管理

房地产开发中的工程建设是一项投资额巨大、建设周期长、技术复杂的工作,决定着房地产企业经济效益。本文结合笔者多年的工作经验,从房地产开发项目的进度、质量以及成本三个方面阐述施工管理中问题以及解决措施。     

试论房地产面积测绘的结果和质量管理

本文通过对房地产面积测绘内容的分析,提出了相关的优化房地产面积测绘的措施及其质量管理。     

Building from Scratch: New Cities,Privatized Urbanism and the Spatial Restructuring of Johannesburg after Apartheid

By the start of the twenty‐first century, the once dominant historical downtown core of Johannesburg had lost its privileged status as the center of business and commercial activities, the metropolitan landscape having been restructured into an assemblage of sprawling, rival edge cities. Real estate developers have recently unveiled ambitious plans to build two completely new cities from scratch: Waterfall City and Lanseria Airport City (formerly called Cradle City) are master‐planned, holistically designed ‘satellite cities’ built on vacant land. While incorporating features found in earlier city‐building efforts, these two new self‐contained, privately‐managed cities operate outside the administrative reach of public authority and thus exemplify the global trend toward privatized urbanism. Waterfall City, located on land that has been owned by the same extended family for nearly 100 years, is spearheaded by a single corporate entity. Lanseria Airport City/Cradle City is a planned ‘aerotropolis’ surrounding the existing Lanseria airport at the northwest corner of the Johannesburg metropole. These two new private cities differ from earlier large‐scale urban projects because everything from basic infrastructure (including utilities, sewerage, and the installation and maintenance of roadways), landscaping, security services, the regulation of common spaces, and selling and branding the city are firmly in the hands of private profit‐making corporate entities and outside the mandate of public authorities.     

Impact of electronic road pricing on real estate prices in Singapore

Since 1998, Singapore has had an Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system set up with a network of toll gantries to tax vehicles entering designated areas in the city center during peak hours. Using the congestion rate hike with effect from November 1, 2010 as an exogenous shock, we test the effects of the ERP rate hike on retail, office and residential real estate prices. The results show that the November 2010 congestion toll rate increases cause a 19% drop in retail real estate prices within the cordon ERP areas relative to retail real estate prices outside the cordon ERP areas. The results are statistically and economically significant. However, the toll rate hike has no significant impact private office and residential real estate within cordoned ERP areas. The robustness and falsification tests could not reject the negative effects associated with the toll rate hike on retail real estate prices.     

Assessing targeted macroprudential financial regulation: The case of the 2006 commercial real estate guidance for banks

In January 2006, federal regulators issued guidance requiring banks with specific high concentrations of commercial real estate (CRE) loans to tighten managerial controls. This paper shows that banks with concentrations in excess of the thresholds set in the guidance subsequently experienced slower growth in their CRE portfolios than can be explained by changes in bank or economic conditions. Moreover, banks above the CRE thresholds tended to have slower commercial and industrial loan growth but faster household loan growth following issuance of the guidance. The results highlight the potentially broad influence that portfolio-based macroprudential regulation might have on bank behavior.