Summary This paper reviews models of the development process. The objective is to assess their capacity to analyse the detail of agency relationships in the negotiation of development projects, while at the same time offering ways of generalizing about the significance of actors and events in the development process under different conditions. The models reviewed are grouped into four types: equilibrium models, event sequence models, agency models and structural models. Each makes a contribution to the objective set out, but none fully addresses the range of possible forms and dynamics which the development process may make. An alternative model is developed in a subsequent paper.

Models of the development process: A review

In this paper, the nature of property and the growing links between property and financial markets are addressed. It is argued that property must be viewed as a commodity with use-value and exchange-value aspects. Property has been affected by two developments in the 1980s: the shift to services (especially financial services) and waves of deregulation. The increase in demand during the 1980s boom stemmed both from investors such as property companies and from end users, especially those engaged in or expanding into securities business following Big Bang. As property markets, including the housing retail finance circuit, became increasingly intertwined with wholesale financial markets they became more susceptible to the vicissitudes of these markets and tendencies toward crisis. The exchange value of property became disengaged from its use value as property took on the attributes of a quasi-financial asset.

The Integration of Property and Financial Markets

This paper reassesses the debate around property market efficiency and introduces an institutional perspective. It considers property market efficiency in terms of the specific characteristics of property itself and the processes through which property is used and traded. It argues that the institutional dimension fundamentally alters the concept of efficiency and leads to a partial and contingent judgement on achieved efficiency. Instead of seeking a judgement on whether the 'property market' as an entity is efficient, the institutional approach allows the possibility that 'property market process' may be efficient for some market participants but not for others. It also introduces a time dimension, suggesting the need to assess the adaptability of property market process as economic and social conditions change.

Property Market Efficiency: An Institutional Economics Perspective

Summary This paper explores the conventional notion of property market maturity, assesses its usefulness, and works towards a new paradigm of property market performance which centres on the explicit consideration of market maturity in addition to the usual economic determinants. A checklist of maturity characteristics is established and used as a framework for assessing the maturity of three case‐study office markets. London is confirmed as a mature market on the conventional criteria while Barcelona and Milan are identified as emerging markets. The case studies suggest that maturity needs to be articulated in more detail than is normally the case and that conventional forms of maturity may carry disadvantages as well as advantages. The paper concludes that the concept of maturity is too complex to provide a simple explanation of comparative property market activity, that maturity does not necessarily imply market efficiency, and that there is no single evolutionary path which will be followed by all pro...

Market maturity and property market behaviour: A European comparison of mature and emergent markets

This paper examines the role of the property market in determining urban competitiveness. For these purposes, urban competitiveness is taken to mean the ability of a city to exploit or create comparative advantage, and thereby to generate high and sustainable economic growth relative to its competitors. The property market describes the institutional arrangements through which real property is used, traded and developed, and the wide range of actors involved in these processes. It seems clear that the property market will in ̄ uence urban competitiveness directly through the provision of suitable accommodation for economic activity and indirectly through its cumulative contribution to the built environment (D’ Arcy and Keogh 1997a). However, the majority of research on urban competitiveness has ignored or downplayed the role of the property market. This paper reviews a diverse and emerging property market literature in an attempt to identify its implications for urban competitiveness, and to formulate a workable analytical approach for the integration of property market and urban economic theory in the promotion of competitive urban development. Interest in urban competitiveness has grown rapidly in recent years. The burgeoning research effort has been multidisciplinary and wide-ranging, attracting contributions from both policy-makers and academics (see, for example, CEC, 1992, 1997; Cheshire and Gordon, 1995, 1996; Jensen-Butler et al., 1997; Oatley, 1998; Porter, 1995; Scott and Soja, 1996). These studies have highlighted the importance of issues such as industrial structure, technological innovation, entrepreneurship, governance, policy action, and even architecture and art, as key determinants of urban competitiveness. They have ranged in coverage from discussions of the broad process of competition between cities (Cheshire and Gordon, 1995, 1996; JensenButler et al., 1997) to the speci® c determinants of inner-city competitive advantage (Porter, 1995). While most research has avoided any detailed consideration of its role, some recent work has begun to explore the property market as a potentially important factor in shaping urban competitive advantages, economic growth and development outcomes (Ball, 1986, 1994, 1996; Carbonaro and D’ Arcy, 1993; D’ Arcy and Keogh, 1997a, 1998; Fainstein, 1993; Garreau, 1991; Healey et al., 1992; van der Krabben, 1995).

W.D. Fraser

Papers

Principles of Property Investment and Pricing