PRRES Newsletter

May 2013

Message from the President

I wish to extend a warm hello in 2013 to all new and existing members of PRRES.  Our academic year got off to a very successful start with a most exciting and forward thinking conference hosted by Judith Callanan and her colleagues from RMIT.  A very sincere thank you to the whole Melbourne team for all their hard work in delivering such a well organized and progressive conference.  The dinner at the MCG was a real highlight.

At the 2013 conference we successfully introduced a number of new awards and cash prizes, details of which are listed elsewhere in this newsletter and congratulations to all PRRES award winners.  At the conference we also introduced the new Estate Master International Feasibility Competition which despite a number of logistical and technical challenges proved a great success. Congratulations also to the winning team!

We did miss one of our most faithful members at the conference; Associate Professor Angelo Karantonis who retired from UTS in September, 2012.  I would like to say on behalf of PRRES a very sincere thank you to Angelo for all he did collectively and individually for the Society and to wish Angelo and Stella a most happy and rewarding retirement.

In the near future I hope to distribute a new PRRES Strategic Plan for 2014 to 2019. This will be been drawn up with the assistance of the Board and the Executive and seek to recognize the challenges we face in an environment of budget constraints, increased competition for funding and greater expectations of authentic and measurable research outputs. The goals and strategies of this new plan will recognize in particular the need to both promote the advantages of PRRES membership as well as actively support our younger academics, early career researchers and postgraduate students to ensure the longevity of our society. The plan will include three key strategies;

Promote excellence in property research
Support younger academics, early career researchers and postgraduate students
After a period of consultation I aim to present the plan for approval at the 2014 PRRES AGM.

Finally I would like to thank the 2013 Board both outgoing and continuing members for all their support and hard work and to welcome and thank new members in anticipation of their contribution and support. I would also like to thank in particular David Parker as Executive Officer, Hera Antoniades as Treasurer, Mike Rehm as Secretary and for the ongoing support of Greg Costello as past President. Also a major thank you to Georgia Warren Myers for organizing all aspects of the PhD Colloquium at the 2013 Conference; and to Connie Susilawati for all her hard work on the inaugural Estate Master International Feasibility Competition.

Kind regards

Valerie Kupke

PRRES President

Melbourne 2013 conference

Around 120 registered delegates attended the conference in Melbourne, with delegates coming from Australia, NZ, Finland, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, USA, Nigeria, Taiwan, England, and Germany. 

In between a wide range of presentations, many attendees were found on the 'deck' catching up with others that they hadn't seen for a while. 

The key note speakers: the Hon Tom Roper, and Mr Mike McAllum provided informative and thought provoking presentations on the future of the built environment. While Prof Tony Keys, and Dr Anthony De Francesco discussed the importance of data and the implications on property investment.

The conference dinner at the MCG, brought out the hidden sports stars amongst a few, with a visit to the National Sports Museum prior to dinner. A number of attendees had a go at testing their sports skills in the interactive area or testing their memory on sports history.

On Tuesday night a few groups got together and enjoyed a night at the tennis, while others headed off to the Cricket or a show.

The Feasibility competition sponsored by Estate Master attracted an excellent final, with a team of students from QUT and Bond (see details below). Both teams set a very high standard for future competitions with the Bond University being the ultimate winners this year.

To see the pictures from the conference taken by Peter Rossini, take a look at the PRRES web site.

Looking forward to the 2014 conference to be held in Christchurch, New Zealand. Keep an eye out on the PRRES website for details.

PRRES Awards 2013 Melbourne Conference

This year's conference saw a number of worthy winners take home some hard earned rewards to display in their trophy cabinets in recognition of excellence.  The responsibility for the administration of PRRES Prizes is now in the capable hands of Iona McCarthy who took over from Clive Warren in January 2012.

After following the standard process for judging the various categories, the following awards were made. Congratulations to the winners listed below and thank you for your contribution to our industry.

PRRES Prizes 2013

Post-Graduate Research Scholarship:

Jiancong Liang - Explaining Cap Rate Movements in Hong Kong

Post-Graduate Research Scholarship:

Jeremy Gabe - The Value of Environmental Performance in Commercial Office Markets

Best Refereed Paper Award:

Valerie Kupe, Peter Rossini & Paul Kershaw  - Renovating the system: assessing policy outcomes through an examination of residential sales transactions

Most Innovative Paper Award:

Hilary Davies - Matching Academic Workspaces and Work Characteristics

PRRES Early Researcher PhD Prize for 'Best Paper'

Po-Jui Wu - The Impact and Effectiveness of the FIRB on Real Estate Practices and Markets

Pacific Rim Real Estate Society Conference 2012

Best Conference Paper Award:

Stephen F. Thode - A Proposed Mortgage to Help Avoid another Housing Bubble

Estate Master competition- Melbourne 2013

The First International Feasibility Competition was conducted in Melbourne 2013.The competition ran in three stage process from initial proposal to the final presentation. Competing teams of four were provided with a real life scenario prior to the conference and had five weeks to collect data necessary to carry out an in-depth analysis and to prepare a proposal addressing the key issues of the business. Each team needed to support their proposal using financial analysis by Estate Master Software. Team submissions were assessed by the judging panel of academic and industry practitioners and scored against set criteria. The short listed teams from stage 1 were then given additional information to conduct an even more detailed financial analysis. Finally, two teams were selected as the winner of stage 2 and were invited to present their proposal and marketing plan at PRRES conference in Melbourne. The presentations were judged by a judging panel of academic and industry practitioners and also by the conference delegates (audience voting).

From the six interested universities, two finalists from Queensland University of Technology and Bond University were asked to present in Melbourne. The winning team were from Bond University. Congratulations to the Bond University team and well done to all the competitors.

In order to ensure this competition remains a key component of future PRRES conferences, Estate Master Property Software provided the travel bursary for the eight students from Queensland University of Technology and Bond University to present their proposals. The collective PRRES membership wishes to acknowledge and thank Estate Master for their continued support with this valuable initiative.

In order to ensure this competition continues to attract interest Estate Master and PRRES Board have conducted survey of the participants, judges and audiences. This information will be used to improve the Second International Feasibility Competition in Lincoln, New Zealand in 2014.  If you want to know about the competition please email Connie Susilawati (c.susilawati@qut.edu.au) the International Feasibility Competition Convener.

Angelo Karantonis retires from UTS

After an outstanding career, Associate Professor Angelo Karantonis retired from UTS in early 2013. Angelo was the leader of the property programs at UTS for over 25 years, establishing UTS as a major provider of property education programs.

Angelo's active involvement with PRRES goes back to day one in 1995, being involved in the establishment and ongoing development of PRRES. Angelo was the 3rd PRRES president in 1999, as well as being the Executive Director of PRRES for several years.  In recognition of his many contributions to PRRES, Angelo received the PRRES Achievement Award in 2002.

Angelo was the driver behind the development of the Pacific Rim Property Research Journal (PRPRJ), being editor and managing editor for many years. During this period, PRPRJ became an important property research outlet for many PRRES members, as well as being a highly rated journal.

PRRES was also actively promoted by Angelo in the international arena. He was a regular attender at various regional real estate society conferences, including ERES, ARES and AsRES conferences. Angelo was the President of the International Real Estate Society (IRES) and received the IRES Service Award in 2002.

The PRRES conference was actively supported by Angelo; he attended nearly all of the PRRES conferences over the last 20 years. He was also involved in the organisation of the three PRRES conferences that were held in Sydney. Stella has also been a great supporter of PRRES, having attended many PRRES conferences, as well as many of the international conferences.

Angelo has made an outstanding contribution to property education and the development of PRRES over many years. He has done this with a great level of personal energy, passion and commitment. Angelo's friendship and support has also been a key factor for many of those involved in PRRES; conference dinners with Angelo were always a highlight.

Thank you, Angelo, for your friendship, and your leadership and enthusiasm for property education and PRRES since PRRES was first established. You will be long remembered as one of the legends of PRRES. I look forward to our future "meetings" in your favourite Greek restaurants. Best wishes for the future.

Professor Graeme Newell

2014 Christchurch NZ

The 20th PRRES Conference will be held at Christchurch NZ and as always will offer a welcoming professional development and networking opportunity for current undergraduates, post graduates, academics and industry professionals including:

  • over 75 academic papers covering a variety of property research,
  • a mentored PhD Colloquium program,
  • the 2nd Estate Master competition,
  • social functions including the Welcome reception, Women's breakfast, Conference Dinner, and
  • an opportunity for members to promote their research.

The Venue

Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island. With a population of just over 400,000 it provides many wonderful attractions without being too big to get attractions without being too big to get around. Served by a modern international airport, Christchurch gives visitors the best of what New Zealand has to offer. In a comparatively unspoilt corner of the world, residents and visitors enjoy wilderness adventure and sophisticated urban living.

January is summer time in Christchurch with average daytime temperatures of 220C. The annual International Busking Festival provides first-class, free street theatre for two weeks from around the 16th January. This event, together with the Garden City Summer Times (www.summertimes.co.nz), a diverse, three-month-long summer festival of music, arts, culture and sporting events across the city, makes Christchurch an excellent holiday choice for all the family. The conference will be hosted at Lincoln University, in keeping with the inaugural 1990 conference, in the quaint semi-rural township of Lincoln, some 23km south-west from Christchurch City.

Submission Deadlines:

30th August - Submission of Refereed and Non Refereed Abstracts
20th September - Acceptance of Abstracts
4th October - Submission of Refereed Papers
TBA - Acceptance of Refereed Papers

Conference Coordinator: Professor Sandy Bond

Email: sandybond@lincoln.ac.nz

University news

QUT Team to play Monopoly in Class

Lyndall Bryant, Chris Eves and Andrea Blake from Queensland University of Technology recently won a University grant to introduce the board game "Monopoly City" into the class room.  This project 'Enhancing first year student engagement and retention through game playing' will introduce structured board game activities to tie theoretical class room learning with collaborative, play based problem solving. This initiative is designed to increase first year student engagement and satisfaction and thus reduce attrition.

The expected benefits of this project include:  enhanced engagement of first year students, acculturate property students early in their degree to enhance student retention, early team building within the Property Economics cohort, introduction of foundational threshold concepts in property education and introduction of problem solving and critical analysis skills in an engaging and entertaining way.

Lyndall, Chris and Andrea plan to present early findings of the pilot phase of this project at the PRRES Conference in Christchurch next year

Research News

New book

Sandy Bond has just published a new co-authored book with Sally Sims and Peter Dent, both of Oxford Brookes University UK, entitled "Towers, Turbines and Transmission Lines: impacts on property value". Here's the link if you are interested in acquiring a copy for your bookshelf.

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1444330071,descCd-buy.html

Well done Sandy........it's nice to see some reward for the hard work!

First time publication

Since the last newsletter in 2012, Lyndall Bryant has published her first sole authored research journal publication. The article entitled 'An assessment of development funding for new housing post GFC in Queensland, Australia' and was published in the International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis, Emerald. Well done Lyndall.

PRRES Membership Report

The updated membership numbers for the past 3 years are as follows: 91 members in 2011, 82 members in 2012, and 91 members in 2013. With regards to the geographical distribution, this year PRRES members came from Australia, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, U.K. and U.S.

In regard to the varying nature of membership one proposed reason for the cyclical pattern is that members who missed the conferences neglected or forgot to renew their membership. In order to address this possibility one of the key PRRES board initiates is to now send reminders to past members of the importance of on-going membership. To date this initiative has received favourable responses but if you haven't already replied your views are welcomed.

Ming-Long Lee

Call for Papers

The Pacific Rim Property Research Journal (PRPRJ) is the official refereed journal of the Pacific Rim Real Estate Society (PRRES). PRPRJ invites contributions in the following property research areas:

  • Property market dynamics
  • Modelling property markets
  • Property valuation
  • Property cycles
  • Housing markets and policy issues
  • Property and IT
  • Property management
  • Corporate real estate
  • International property
  • Property development
  • Property investment and finance
  • Property education

Papers must examine applied property issues in a rigorous manner, should not be merely descriptive and will be subject to an anonymous review process by two external referees.

For further information contact: Professor David Parker, Editor, Pacific Rim Property Research Journal

Email: david.parker@unisa.edu.au

PRRES Newsletter

Editor: Neville Hurst, Deakin Uni
neville.hurst@deakin.edu.au

Webmaster: Clive Warren, Uni QLD
c.warren@uq.edu.au

Next edition Oct/Nov 2013