UK Retail Report

Posted on: 25 April 2014
By: mackene
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A bi-annual report from Knight Frank covering UK Retail property market, including the occupational development and investment sectors.

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Balancing the performance scorecard: how to maximize customer feedback in Facilities Management

Posted on: 24 April 2014
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Based on the critical themes that emerged from the vast amounts of qualitative data collected across 23 in-depth interviews with a diverse range of facilities management (FM) professionals from an in-house and outsourced background, across a range of business sectors, this RICS research report proposes a key set of recommendations to enable FM professionals maximise their ability to capture customer feedback in order to improve the provision of space and facilities.

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Infrastructure 2014: Shaping the competitive city

Posted on: 23 April 2014
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The quality of infrastructure systems, including transportation, utilities, and telecommunications, is the most important factor influencing real estate investment and development decisions in cities around the world, according to a survey of public sector and private sector leaders conducted by the Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young.

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Analysis of development trend and operation models for midscale hotels in China

Posted on: 22 April 2014
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The midscale hotel market in China has begun to receive attention from many international and domestic hotel brands. This article discusses the development trends and operation models for midscale hotels in China.

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East of City Residential Market

Posted on: 17 April 2014
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This latest report from Savills looks at the residential property market East of the City of London.

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UK Shopping Centre Development Report

Posted on: 17 April 2014
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The report benchmarks UK regions in terms of shopping centre density (GLA/1,000 people) and discusses topics such as key schemes for delivery, key schemes in the pipeline and key investment deals.

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Preventing a global condo bubble collapse – and slowing inequity

Posted on: 17 April 2014
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This blog considers whether the rapid profusion of high-rise investment condos around the world is widening the gap between rich and poor and leading to a worldwide housing bubble.

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Greening the property tax

Posted on: 16 April 2014
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This paper reviews the literature and policy discussions about the role of the property tax for land use. Various externalities of the development of land, such as new infrastructure needs, the loss of open space or air pollution due to longer commutes as people locate far from city centres, are not internalised fully by property taxes or other policy instruments and this is often thought to contribute to excessive land use and urban sprawl. The impact of property taxes on land use intensity and sprawl is ambiguous in theory, however, and it depends on tax design, as well as land use regulation policies and other taxes that can influence municipalities’ incentives to convert land for development. Yet, there is some evidence suggesting that higher property taxes can limit urban sprawl, in particular when the tax on land is higher than on structures, although effects are small given relatively given a limited price elasticity of land use. Various property tax design options are discussed that may help to better internalise land use related externalities.

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The political economy of property tax reform

Posted on: 16 April 2014
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Property taxes are generally considered by economists to be good taxes, and many countries are being advised to increase and improve their property taxes. In practice, however, property tax reforms have often proved to be difficult to carry out successfully. This paper discusses why property taxes are particularly challenging to reform and suggests several ways in which efforts to reform this tax may become more successful in the future. After a brief introductory section on the ‘disconnect’ between the economics and the politics of property tax reform, Section 2 summarizes recent experiences in five OECD countries with property tax reform. Against this background, Section 3 sets out the key elements of a good property tax reform and Section 4 discusses several aspects of property tax reform that seem to have derailed or distorted reforms in practice. Unfortunately, some of the solutions countries have adopted to deal with such problems are themselves problematic, either because they do not really solve the problem or because they hamper rather than work towards the establishment of a good property tax. s Section 5 outlines that it is possible to devise strategies for property tax reform that incorporate more acceptable solutions to most problems. As Section 6 concludes, that while good property tax reform is not easy, it can definitely be achieved if an appropriately designed reform package is properly introduced and implemented.

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Prime Residential Retreats

Posted on: 14 April 2014
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This first edition of Prime Residential Retreats looks at a selection of the most popular and widely invested resorts and hotspots around the Mediterranean, the Alps, South Africa and the Caribbean.

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