published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

A spatial hedonic model was constructed for a lakefront golf course community in South Carolina. Geographic information system (GIS) analysis classified 589 vacant lots into eight different view categories including golf course, mountain, and lake views. The OLS results confirm a hierarchy in the pricing of views with premiums ranging from 42% to 54% for golf course views, 94% to 133% for lake views, and 131 %to 305% for lakefront lots. Spatial variables including the slope of a lot, length of shoreline, and proximity to the lakeside village were also found to be statistically significant variables influencing the value of the property. Other spatial variables were found to be statistically insignificant including view aspect and length of golf course frontage. Tests for spatial autocorrelation were conducted for the 589 properties utilizing spatial lag and spatial error models. Both spatial models were statistically superior compared to the original OLS model. The diagnostic tools indicate that the modeling of the spatial errors using a maximum likelihood framework produces a statistically significant model that improves goodness-of-fit indicators compared to an alternative spatial lag model. These results confirm the importance of modeling spatial errors. The period of study, from 2000 to 2010, was a decade of turbulence in the real estate market on Lake Keowee. The empirical evidence indicates the emergence of a speculative bubble that reached its crescendo in 2005/2006 with median real estate prices doubling in a five year period. This study examines the role of launch marketing tactics as a price amplifier by creating an urgency to buy in response to a systematic increase in property prices and simultaneously limiting supply by restricting lot sales to 30% of reservations. Finally, the study illustrates that the construction of golf courses is no panacea to the problems confronting today's residential real estate developers. The results suggest that communities based on waterfront properties may have greater potential price growth in strong markets and resiliency in weak markets. Further research is warranted to understand the changing role of golf courses in the 21st century.

Annotation Innovations have been accompanying the human society during the whole era of its development. The concerns in stimulation of the innovations have lead to efforts for legal protection. Time limitation of patent owner's rights to an exclusive use of a technical solution has been raising opinion disputes during the whole period of its evolution. Even nowadays, in Czech as well as in European context, there are still many questions open in range of the patent protection and to contribute to its better understanding and clarification has been the main goal of this publication. From the point of view of the Czech milieu we have been living in a period of a growing attention paid to innovations while at the same time it has been a period filled with many substantial changes in range of the protection of technical solutions. The Czech Republic's access to the European Patent Convention has within the scope of this international agreement enabled validity of the European patents granted by the decision of the European Patent Office in the Czech territory for the first time. In addition, our country had became a member of the European Communities what has resulted in important changes in legislation regarding the industrial property rights protection and partially regarding the solutions protected by patents as well. These facts have had a considerable impact on the business environment in the Czech Republic, giving the Czech Republic the role of an active player on the European patent playground. This writing deals in particular with the matters of legal protection of inventions and their economic impact, while in some parts of this work, somewhat unsystematically; it swings into contemplations about the industrial property itself. This happens willfully and with an intention to analyze some of the issues in broader context and therewith contribute to better understanding of the complicated and in some cases distinctively contradictory or controversially manifesting relationships. First part of this book characterizes elementary issues of the patent law, thus not only historically but as regards the contemporary European and Czech legal milieu as well. European patent system is represented by the activities of the European Patent Organization and national patent offices. The Community patent system, despite the effort put in during the past 50 years, is still does not exist. However, this does not mean that current system does not provide us with numerous issues enough to contemplate about and analyze. The decisions of the European Patent Office are influenced by the diversity of the historic evolution of the patent systems in various parts of Europe; therefore they can be used as an interesting inspiration and study material for the expert public. That is the reason why there is often referred to them in this work. On the other hand, the legal relations originated from the European patents, after the European patent protection had been granted, are a subject to a review according to the national legislation, therefore it is not surprising that the decisions and results of similar disputes not seldom bring different results. It is therefore worth to analyze them thoroughly. The extent of this work has only allowed me to concentrate only on some of the above mentioned issues, such are the possibility of legal protection of computer2 implemented inventions, issues connected with the extent of the patent protection and basic ideas on financial assessment of technical solutions, primarily of the patents. Some more detailed considerations were included too, such as about the debates and their progress in European level. Herewith I mean the matters concerning the translations of European and possibly Community patents, patent protection quality and in long term, thought until now unsuccessful debates regarding the creation of the European patent judiciary.

The presented thesis is focused on the property valuation from a bank point of views for the purpose of providing loans. Its main objective is the analysis of particular secured bank loans pledged with real estate from contemporary bank practice. The secondary goal is to present the laws in force, explaining policies and procedures of the different methodologies.

The decline in property value can be due to owner's act or exogenous act from the operation of landfills. Landfill neighbors, especially home owners, perceive landfill operation to pose environmental safety problem such as ground water contamination and methane gas leakage that could affect home value. Owners of landfills, especially those landfills that accept only dry waste (limited purpose landfill), claim that since their facilities meet the requirements of environmental regulations and the type of waste they accept could not possibly produce methane gas and leachate there is no property value impact of their facilities. Several studies have shown that landfills do not have impact on property value. However, one recent study found that a large regional landfill have impact on property value. The property value impact of a limited purpose landfill located in Portland, Oregon, was investigated in this study. Data were gathered for homes in approximately one half mile radius around the landfill for the periods before the landfill opened, during operation, and after closure. Hedonic estimation technique incorporated in a multiple linear regression was used to control for a key variable (proximity or distance between the landfill and homes) and examine the relationship of this variable and sale price of homes. The results show that distance of homes (the proxy for perception) from the landfill was positively related and statistically significant with sale prices of homes during the period the landfill was in operation. Distance of homes sold in the periods the landfill was not in existence or operation was not positively related nor statistically significant with sale prices. That is, the operational effects of the landfill was capitalized into property value. With this result, the issue of whether neighbors of landfills should be compensated deserve more attention. The results of this study would be very helpful in negotiating compensation. The results also show that if adequate pollution mitigation measures are in place landfill zoning ordinance should be based on the fact that landfill sites would yield maximum economic benefit to the owner after closure.

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Many countries such as Australia, Ireland, Netherlands, United Kingdom (UK), Spain, United States of America (USA) and South Africa (SA) among others have experienced an increase in housing prices, since the late 1990s. In SA, the abrupt increase in residential property prices, particularly during the period 1999 to 2007, resulted in an improvement in the level of households’ net wealth position. Empirical investigations, mainly from developed countries, provide evidence indicating that a house price increase has a significant impact on the households’ wealth, and thus house price gains increase housing collateral for homeowners which make it possible for them to take out equity in the form of refinancing or selling of the house to finance consumption. With the above in mind, this study investigates the relationship between aggregate expenditure on consumption by households and residential house prices in South Africa. Following the permanent-income/lifecycle hypothesis (PI-LCH), this study applies the vector error model (VECM) into the 1980:Q1 to 2007:Q4 quarterly data sample. The overall finding of the study indicates there is indeed a long-run positive relationship between housing prices and consumption in South Africa. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2010.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Graduate School of the Environment, 2001. / Bibliography: p. 10-1 to 10-23. / An overview of contaminated land issues -- Land contamination law -- The impact of environmental planning on contaminated land value -- Identification and management of contaminated land -- Contaminated land valuation method - an overview -- Current stigma assessment methods -- Suggested method for stigma assessment -- General conclusion. / This dissertation is about the valuation of contaminated land and the problem of stigma. The value of contaminated land is to a large extent affected by statutory regulations. Stigma, if it exists, is another factor that has significant impact on contaminated land value. This thesis looks at the relevant laws governing contaminated land in Australia. It also introduces an alternative method to assess the stigma factor. -- Contaminated land is a major environmental problem. Apart from causing actual or potential threats to human health and the environment, contaminated land also leads to legal liabilities and financial losses to the landowner. Regarding financial losses, they may be costs to meet legal requirements in relation to clean up and long term monitoring expenses. In addition, they may be losses due to a drop in market value and/or rental of the property, longer vacancy periods, high remediation and monitoring costs. In the extreme case, the property may lose marketability completely. -- Regarding valuation methods, most valuers use traditional valuation methods with arbitrary adjustments. The most straightforward method is the impaired value (affected value) approach. It requires the valuer to assess the property on a clean land basis. From the unimpaired (clean) value, other financial losses due to contamination, remediation costs and stigma value loss are deducted to get the impaired value. The most difficult part is to quantify stigma impact. The existing stigma assessment methods are not satisfactory. Alternative and non-traditional methods are available. However they are academic and are not suitable for day-to-day operation of a valuer. This thesis suggests a multi-criteria decision-making model to assess stigma impact. The target stigma factor is obtained by processing the relevant criteria with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method. The best alternative from the model is the reasonable stigma factor for the property. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / various pagings ill. (some col.)

The aim of this diploma thesis is to compare market prices with respect to the locations in European cities. Locations are divided to European capitals and European cities with smaller (limited) population. Selected real estates are predefined apartment and predefined family house which are the same for all locations. Subject of the literature review is the definition of basic concepts, introduction of the real estate market situation both from the Czech and European perspective and outline of the basic information on European Valuation Standards including their history. Before starting the thesis I established the methodical procedure consisting of selection of the location, i.e. analysis of the markets of individual European metropolises and cities with smaller (limited) population. For the research I chose 4 capitals and 4 cit ies with a population up to 100.000 in Germany, Great Britain, France and the Czech republic. I focused especially on comparison of market prices of the apartments between individual European capitals because an apartment is object of the business transactions more often than a family house. I compared the market prices of family houses only in the cities with smaller (limited) population. In conclusion I tried to clearly summarize the reasons for the price differences between the cities with emphasis on the economic force in individual countries.