Thesis: S.M. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 65-66). / This thesis explores the relationship between Sovereign Wealth Fund participation in the United States and office risk premium. Over the past 10 years the commercial real estate industry has been the benefactor of a shifting tide in equity capital formation. Sovereign Wealth Funds, proliferating over the past 15 years, have discovered that commercial real estate is a well aligned asset class along side equities, bonds, and other alternative assets. With that said, Sovereign Wealth Funds are not typical sources of equity. Unlike private capital, sovereign capital receives special treatment in their home county as well as most recipient countries. For example, some advantages that Sovereign Wealth Funds enjoy over private sources include the following; no disclosure requirements, no stock/stake holders to report to, and limited or zero taxation. Additionally, due to the extreme ground swell of foreign reserves and current account balances, there is nearly zero obligation for the return of capital. With no direct need for a return of or on capital, many of these Sovereign Wealth Funds operate under an effective "indefinite" time horizon. Finally, as government entities, there may be non-economic strategic goals when informing the investment decision. Combining these issues of limited transparency, preferential taxation, limited discloser requirements, indefinite investment horizon, and noneconomic motivations, Sovereign Wealth Funds have a clear pricing advantage over privately sourced investment funds. After achieving a statistically significant regression model, this thesis quantifies the magnitude and character of this advantage by looking at the estimated market risk premium paid as a result of Sovereign Wealth Fund participation. / by Robert Joshua Lehr. / S.M. in Real Estate Development

Thesis: M. Arch. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2016. / Thesis: S.M. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 96). / Pedagogical experiments played very important role in shaping architectural discourse and practice in the second half of the 20th century. Along the history, the architecture discipline developed and struggled for new territories by articulating its relationship to the technological, socio-political and cultural transformations of the time -- and education became a vehicle for these actions. The rise of information technology brought sharing economy to urban life. Accessibility to spaces has been redistributed along with the notion of private and public territories. As companies starting to build platforms like Airbnb, Breather to accelerate the mixing of multi-programmatic spaces, institutional organizations tend to stay unchanged for their spatial arrangements. With the title of "Sharing School of Architecture", this thesis is putting together an argument as well as an attempt to push architecture school to the frontier of sharing economy by reimaging its spatial and programatic organization in the contemporary urbanism context, which eables architecture elements to access, curate and reinvent spaces into pedagogical programs. Instead of a static campus with traditional curriculum, architecture school should be an ever-growing network of spaces as part of urbanization, and a system continuously generating creative content that fullfills people's contenporary urban life. / by Kun Qian. / M. Arch. in Real Estate Development / S.M. in Real Estate Development

Thesis (S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in Conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2011. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-51). / Much research has been done to examine the volatilities of return on public and private real estate investments. However, little is known about market volatility in real estate in general and in apartment real estate in particular. This paper uses 21-year quarterly data across 46 markets in the United States to analyze the market volatility behavior of apartment real estate markets. In addition to summarizing the general profile of apartment volatilities such as vacancy change and revenue change, this paper conducts a significant amount of cross-sectional time-series regression analysis to test the determinants of such volatilities. It is found that demand volatilities dominate the volatility of vacancy change of apartment markets. As for the revenue change volatility, it is almost equally determined by occupancy change and rent change volatilities. Furthermore, the paper finds that big markets, fast economic growth, and a decreased concentration magnitude tend to reduce vacancy and revenue volatilities. Regulations on redevelopment tend to increase the volatilities of revenue change and rent change. The supply elasticities are proved to increase the volatility of vacancy change and revenue change, but to decrease the volatilities of demand and rent change. This paper provides a better understanding of apartment market volatilities, and can be used to hedge risk by improving apartment diversification strategies for both private equity real estate firms and public real estate investment trusts (REITs). / by Mai Luo. / S.M.in Real Estate Development

Thesis (S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in Conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2011. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how a developer can best redevelop a vacant big box retail property. To accomplish this, statistical, geographical and demographical analysis was done on previously repositioned vacant big boxes. To make this project manageable, the timeline for this study was limited to properties redeveloped within the last ten years and the geographic scope was narrowed to the state of Texas. Sales data on vacant big boxes sold in Texas within the last ten years was collected from Real Capital Analytics. Research was conducted via Internet, telephone and site visits in order to determine the current use of each property and was later categorized by current use. Each property-s tax appraised value at the time of sale and today was collected from each properties county appraisal district and compared in order to measure changes in value from the re-positioning. Three previous and relevant studies have been conducted prior to this thesis, two by Colliers International and one by Texas A&M University. All three are discussed in detail and incorporated into this thesis. Results show that big boxes in high population density locations found new tenants much faster than those in less dense locations. Rental rates on average fell further for freestanding repositioned big boxes when compared to big boxes that were a part of a multi-tenant property. The properties where the old structure was demolished and a new structure was built had the largest increase in both total tax-assessed value and tax-assessed land value. Properties that still had the same existing structure and remained vacant lost the most tax-appraised value. / by Alfonso Barrera-Villarreal. / S.M.in Real Estate Development

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in Conjunction with the Center for Real Estate , 2009. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Vita. Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-59). / What, When and Where to Develop? The purpose of this study is to help find the major areas of opportunity for housing development and production in Mexico. The thesis intends to help developers in their eternal quest for the right product, location and timing. The answer to these questions will not only help developers with decision making regarding housing projects, but will be helpful to the industry as a whole. It will help lending institutions determine which projects to finance and will be a valuable tool for local and federal governments in determining which cities and income levels or housing products need higher government subsidy or support. The number of housing units sold in Mexico in the last decade has almost quadrupled, yet market forecasts generated by institutions and developers seem negligible. A greater effort to assess the housing demand and deficit has been made by private institutions and government entities which finance most housing sales in the country, while developers seem only to go as far as is necessary to secure financing for their respective projects. This study provides an outlook of the housing markets in Mexico and includes an analysis of what is currently being done to measure and forecast housing demand. The thesis concludes with rigorous economics analysis intended to forecast markets through a Vector Autoregression (VAR) Model. The model uses 15 years of historical data on housing prices, inventories and sales with economic and demographic variables to create forecasts for seven cities representing each of the seven regions the country was segmented into for the study. / by Ricardo M. Solórzano M. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in Conjunction with the Center for Real Estate , 2009. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-113). / This research paper attempts to address the opportunity and challenges for Vacation Residential Development in North Asia, with specific geographic focus on Japan first through an analysis of national and regional consumption, tourism and real estate trends, followed by examination of similar successful developments in the surrounding region and lastly, application of research findings to assess the feasibility for a vacation home development in Kanagawa (Japan), a prefecture filled with several coastal communities approximately thirty-five miles south west of Tokyo. The concept of vacation homes has not been as well received in Japan as in other developed regions, specifically Western Europe and North America. In the most recent housing survey conducted by the Japanese government, less than 1% of the housing stock could be considered as, "second dwellings" whilst in France and the US vacation homes make up roughly 10% and 3% (respectively) of the total housing stock. More recently in the past decade, there has been significant efforts made by both international and domestic developers to develop the vacation home market in the world's second largest economy. The hypothesis for this research is: demand for vacation residences in Japan will be driven by 1) the demographic shift within Japan, 2) emergence (and in some cases reemergence) of both the Japanese and surrounding regional Asian economies and 3) subsequently the large and growing concentration of high net worth individuals within the region. / (cont.) This thesis engages qualitative research with quantitative analysis of the market and existing developments around the globe. Research findings are then used as inputs to assess what product type and operating model should be built to properly capture demand. The thesis may be considered the precursor to a more intensive quantitative research applying urban econometric models to determine exact demand both nationally and within specific micro markets. The thesis is presented with the assumption that the reader has a good understanding of the geography and the economic, socio and political conditions in Japan; and is written with a bias in favor of real estate development in Japan. Lastly, best efforts have been made to aggregate and use the most recent and available data, but in some cases industry and public sector reports are not released on an annual basis. With regards to forex conversion, the rate used throughout this research is USD 1=JPY 113, the monthly last price average between 2001.09 and 2009.5. / by Michael M. Lam. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in Conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2009. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-79). / This thesis applies past research on real options - a right, but not an obligation to take some action on a real asset in the future - to a very specific type of real estate development related to Olympic Village development. The Olympics have been previously criticized for the excessive cost of preparation for the 16 or 17 day event. Chicago, if selected to host the 2016 Summer Games, could be faced with many of the same challenges of past cities. The purpose of this thesis is not to provide the final answer to whether a developer should implement design flexibility into a project like the Chicago Olympic Village, but rather provide a tool for which to analyze the project and areas of uncertainty. Real Options Analysis (ROA) is presented as a set of specific steps that correlate with more commonly used methods of real estate valuation. In order to determine the optimal sources for flexibility, qualitative research identifies challenges and uncertainties of Olympic Village development. This data is reviewed, analyzed and used to illustrate potential sources of flexibility for further analysis. ROA introduces the use of Monte Carlo simulation to better forecast the range of expected outputs and then integrates flexibility at various decision points of the project. The results of this model should allow decision makers for a project to choose the most desired path based on the goals and requirements of the project. It is observed, based on the assumptions used for this analysis, that flexibility "in" and "on" the project does create additional value, however this additional value is partially offset by the cost of the flexibility, if applicable. / (cont.) The results also illustrate the benefits of mitigating the downside risk of a project with the use of a real option. The process could provide alternate results with the use of other assumptions. The analysis of the hypothetical case study also investigates the relationship of two individual real options applied to a project simultaneously. It is determined, through results analysis, that the effect of a real option "on" and a real option "in" are virtually cumulative in achieving additional value for each type of option. / by Robert J. Martinson. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in Conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2011. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-76). / Sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing phenomenal population growth since the beginning of the 20th Century, following several centuries of population stagnation attributable to the slave trade and colonization. The region's population in fact increased from 100 million in 1900 to 770 million in 2005. The latest United Nations projections, published in March 2007, envisaged a figure of 1.5 to 2 billion inhabitants being reached between the present and 2050 (CEPED, 2008). The growth in population poses a lot of challenges for Governments of these countries, not the least is housing the masses. Some governments have explored industrialized building systems (IBS) -- PREFAB HOUSES to address the housing shortage. The social and economic factors in these countries have impeded the success of these housing initiatives. In 1952 the then Gold Coast government explored the possibility of employing industrialized Building Systems (IBS) -- PREFAB HOUSES to relieve the housing shortage in the country, then a British colony. The government engaged Messrs. N. V. Schokbeton of Kampen, Holland as consultant of the project and producers of the Prefab houses. The program was abandoned on the recommendation of the United Nations Technical Assistance Mission on Housing to Ghana. This essence of this paper is to reviews the UN report to the government of Gold Coast to learn why the project failed and what might be done to make such a project successful in the 21st century . This paper uses case studies to show countries that have successfully and unsuccessfully employed Industrialized Building Systems (IBS) -- PREFAB HOUSES to address housing shortage. Finally, this paper employs a survey to gauge the interest - the willingness of the middle income Ghanaian to adopt prefab houses as dwelling units. / by Evans K. Essienyi. / S.M.in Real Estate Development

Thesis: S.M. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 71). / This study conducted some interviews to professionals related to the Retail Logistics Industry, and gained understanding for Mexican E-commerce. After interviewing these professionals, six reasons for the delay of Mexican E-retail were identified. The reasons are: Lack of Confidence from the User, Increasing Unbanked Population, Undeveloped Infrastructure, Captive Retail Shoppers, Lag in General Development, and Shopping as a Form of Cheap Entertainment. Reliable information helps support the fact that general lack of development for internet retail in Mexico will soon take a shift. However, in order to avoid risks related to internet retail, Mexico must develop: Better Fiscal and Credit Regulations, Improved Implementations for Telecommunication Reforms, Increased Security Issues for Package Delivery, Superior E-retail Platforms, Enhanced Mitigation of Identity Theft, Cheaper Mobile Internet, Higher Relative Value of Time, Effective Taxation of Remittances, Upgraded Infrastructure, and Less Unbanked Population. Relying on some forecasts, the expected increase in demand for Mexican Logistic Real Estate Class A between 2015 and 2018, due to e-commerce, might range between 0.98 million to 1.65 million square feet (153,290 to 91,045 square meters). Top industry executives expect that 60 % of future E-Retail operations could be hosted in the Northern part of Mexico City. A rough guess regarding the rest of the E-Retail logistic potential could be: 15 % Monterrey, 15 Villahermosa, and 10 % Guadalajara. Nevertheless, Industrial Real Estate requirements related to E-Commerce are not written on stone. The Last Mile problem could be addressed in the next ten years with large fulfillment centers located in strategic positions on the outskirts, and fully linked to a huge network of small or medium warehouses located in central strategic locations in the cities. Intensive logistic operations could leverage the expensive rents in CBDs, so that industrial sorting facilities can be located there. The computed costs for this idea could range between 122 and 74 US cents. If the idea exposed on sub-chapter 4.6 is feasible, Suburban warehouses could be less required, increasing the demand for warehouses in the outskirts. / by Alejandro Rico Celis. / S.M. in Real Estate Development

Thesis (S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in Conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2012. / Cataloged from department-submitted PDF version of thesis. This electronic version was submitted and approved by the author's academic department as part of an electronic thesis pilot project. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-70). / On July 21, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (The Act), which was developed by Congress in response to the financial crisis of 2008. In this paper we briefly discuss the history of U.S. financial regulation, the events leading up to the Dodd-Frank Act, and the intent of the new regulation. We note key events and industry types that contributed to the financial collapse of 2008. We also identify the provisions within the Act that will impact private and publically traded real estate investment entities and analyze the extent of any such impact. The hypothesis of this paper is that certain real estate investment entities are not systemic to the U.S. financial system and if new regulation designed to reform Wall Street and protect consumers is placing a significant burden on these firms without accomplishing the goals of the Act, then real estate investment entities should not be subject to such regulation. The analytic approach of this paper is to: 1) identify the provisions within the Act that will impact real estate equity entities (i.e., private real estate private funds and REITs), 2) conduct industry interviews to identify the likely short-term magnitude of the impacts due to new regulation and, 3) offer a conclusion as to whether the Act will have a substantial negative effect on the industry. In conclusion, with respect to these investment entities, we found that the Dodd-Frank Act has improved transparency to investors through increased disclosures. However, the allencompassing nature of the Act has forced fund managers who were previously exempt from SEC registration to comply with securities regulations regardless of the systemic nature, or lack thereof, of their business practices. While such compliance will not have a substantial negative effect on the industry, we find that the regulation of private real estate funds does not help further the goals of the Dodd-Frank Act. / by Michael DiMinico and John Edward Lubitz. / S.M.in Real Estate Development