Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (February 17, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-53)

Thesis (M.U.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-104).

Timeshare ownership is a continually increasing market within the real-estate development industry. Marketed both as deeded property ownership and personal investments in heightened vacation experiences, timeshares have been developed, branded and sold in high vacation destinations around the world. From its precarious beginnings to its currently expanding popularity, timeshares have become a profitable and dynamic branch in real-estate development. Today, several international realestate corporations have branded and cornered the timeshare industry with everexpanding development scope and long-term business planning. This professional report will encompass the following five main categories: 1. An introduction to the timeshares and its development history; 2. Defining the timeshare product, market and clientele; 3. Analysis of timeshare feasibility planning and business dynamics; 4. Analysis of timeshare design and development concepts; 5. Summary and a look to the future of resort development; This professional report will attempt to conceptualize the timeshare development process both through analysis of development concepts and methodologies as well as applying such elements into hypothetical examples. Through the examination of initial project planning, feasibility and cash flow pro forma, and various other programming and design elements, this report will try to present an understanding of the timeshare development process and create a guide for development that can be applicable for real-world use. / text

In the asset-pricing framework, idiosyncratic risk is the risk that is independent of systematic risk and peculiar to one specific asset or company, it is left with no role in expected returns according to the classic finance theory since it could be completely diversified away. However, in the case investors holding under-diversified portfolios, previous theoretical studies generally demonstrate a positive relationship between idiosyncratic risk and expected returns. However, negative empirical evidences regarding the idiosyncratic risk-return tradeoff have been reported recently in the stock market of the U.S. and China, as well as in several real estate literatures. To reconcile the conflict, this thesis is dedicated to investigate the role of idiosyncratic risk in the context of real estate investment. In the theoretical exploration, an asset-pricing model with short-sales restrictions in the market and heterogeneous beliefs among investors is established. Specifically, a simplified version with only three risky assets, in which two of them are direct and indirect real estate investments, demonstrates when investors endowed with incomplete information setting and under-diversified holdings, idiosyncratic risk would play an important role in the expected returns in equilibrium. Furthermore, the comparative static analysis reveals a positive cross-sectional relationship between idiosyncratic risk and expected returns. In the empirical study, this thesis employs the Fama and French (1992) three-factor model to estimate monthly idiosyncratic volatilities of the Listed Property Companies (LPCs) in the A-share market of China, based on the daily data from May 1999 to Aug 2011. Specifically, for each LPC in each month, its idiosyncratic risk is computed as the standard deviation of the three-factor model’s daily residuals. The estimation outputs show that idiosyncratic volatility dominates the LPCs’ overall volatility during the study period, and it is features with a distinct pattern when compared to that of the U.S. REITs: the LPCs’ idiosyncratic volatilities are significantly higher and more persistent; they are less irrelevant to the firm’s market capitalization and present an evident co-movement with the broad market. Hence, this scenario reveals a special interest to further study on the cross-sectional relationship between the LPCs’ idiosyncratic risk and their expected returns. In the cross-sectional test, conditional idiosyncratic volatility forecasted by the EGARCH-GED model is employed as the proxy for expected idiosyncratic risk, as the LPCs’ lagged idiosyncratic risk is shown to be not a good estimate. Over the study period, a firm positive cross-sectional relationship between idiosyncratic risk and expected returns is documented, after controlling for various pricing factors such as firm size and book-to-market equity ratio, indicators of liquidity and momentum as well as returns reversal effect. This evidence not only confirms the prediction of previous theoretical studies and the model in this thesis, it also suggests a profitable trading strategy based on the idiosyncratic risk of the LPCs. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Since the formal announcement of the guiding principles of sustainable development in the 1999 Policy Address, sustainable development has become a hot topic in various industries. Housing management is one of the fields that sustainable development principles could be taken place. It was believed that the diversified job natures of housing management give potential opportunities to enhance sustainable development. The aim of the project is to find absent the potential roles of housing manger in contributing the sustainable development. Before applying the concept of sustainable development into housing management, in order to study the rationale behind this concept, the emerge of this idea and its historical development would be discussed. While the functions of housing manager were differentiated in different countries and different properties, the fundamental job function would be discovered, followed by the evolution of change till the modern century. To investigate the prospective relationships between the living environment and sustainable development, residential property was chosen as the scope of this study. Six residential apartments with different scales and different management structures were selected for case studies. It was found that there are numbers of opportunities for housing manager to enhance the sustainable development in the housing estates, while most of these opportunities were related to the job functions of housing manager. The study found that housing manager could be a good facilitator to integrate the effort of all stakeholders in constructing a sustainable living community. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Thesis (MTech. degree in Marketing)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2011. / Determines buyer's satisfaction with regards to the delivery of service by real estate agents in the Tshwane metropolitan area of the Gauteng province, South Africa.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Urban Studies / Master / Master of Social Sciences