Thesis: S.M. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 59-62). / This thesis examines the spatial and operational efficiencies of major US retailers in relation to their physical real estate and e-commerce footprints. The continued rise of e-commerce has altered the dynamics of the retail industry in such a way that has forced retailers to drastically reallocate their resources to stay profitable. One of the biggest questions modern retailers face is how much traditional brick and mortar retail space should be retained as opposed to other resources dedicated to delivered goods, which can include inventory warehouses, distribution centers, fulfillment locations, or simply a strengthened online presence. To shed light on this issue, we conduct a cross-sectional analysis that investigates the leading factors shaping retailer efficiency and effectiveness using performance data from over 120 of the largest retail companies currently operating in the United States. The results show that e-commerce sales, indirect sales, and gross margin have positive correlations to distribution space share, employment efficiency, and spatial efficiency and have negative correlations to total cost share, labor cost share, and space cost share. We also determine that indirect sales and gross margin have no correlation to e-commerce sales and accumulated store square footage. By understanding the drivers behind retailer performance, new insight for the outlooks of both retail and industrial real estate asset classes can be gleaned, which can prove to be beneficial to retailers, landlords, and developers alike. / by Edward C. Tung. / S.M. in Real Estate Development

This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Thesis: S.M. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2018 / Pages 105 and 106 blank. Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 96-101). / This thesis assesses the residential real estate development industry in Greater Boston and makes policy recommendations to increase the supply of middle-income housing. Boston's rapid growth in the decade since the Great Recession has caused a housing shortage for middle-income families who cannot afford luxury housing nor qualify for subsidized units. This analysis addresses the problem with a broad study of the real estate market using public reports, market data, and professional interviews. It concludes that opportunities for middle-income housing can be expanded by adding supply to the larger market, reducing development costs to build housing in naturally affordable areas, and utilizing funds for income restricted housing. This thesis makes thirteen specific recommendations in six categories, including land use and zoning, design, construction, transportation, finance, and taxes. These recommendations can be implemented together or individually to mitigate high housing costs for middle-income families in eastern Massachusetts. / by Phillip D. Cohen and William T. Stattman. / S.M. in Real Estate Development / S.M.inRealEstateDevelopment Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate

Abstract This research paper tracks the growth of e-commerce retail sales from 2000 through 2018 to see if the emergence of e-commerce has affected the retail real estate market in any way. With many stores now offering online shopping and many large retailers contemplating lowering their presence in brick and mortar stores, this question is relevant now more than ever. In order to test for the correlation between e-commerce retail sales growth and the retail real estate market, a collection of retail real estate factors are investigated. This paper tests retail real estate factors at the United States country level and a more in-depth city level that investigates 66 individual cities nationwide. In the OLS modeling, these retail variables represent my dependent variables. These dependent variables were then regressed on a yearly basis against total e-commerce retail sales and a vector of control variables. The results show that returns of the NCREIF property index, asking rent, and percent change in commercial real estate prices for the U.S. are negatively impacted by total e-commerce retail sales. These results indicate that the growth of e-commerce retail sales has negatively impacted the retail real estate market to some degree. This correlation can have long term impacts on the survival of many retail businesses and can eventually affect the economies of small towns and cities across the country. If physical retail locations begin to suffer, other local stores and restaurants will likely suffer as well, eventually impacting the economy on a larger scale.

This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Thesis: S.M. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2019 / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 63-64). / This study introduces a geographical approach to analyze the market for new housing in Bogota, Colombia and address limitations of currently available research that is not sensitive to underlying spatial determinants in this city. The overall purpose of this investigation is to provide a framework to evaluate this market from a data-driven perspective in a context where information is often limited or disperse, while illustrating the importance of spatial interactions to develop estimations through quality-adjusted hedonic price models. The analysis is based on a dataset with information of more than 400 thousand new condominium transactions during the period between August 2010 and August 2018 in Bogota and surrounding municipalities. The properties are reverse-geocoded, assigned to their specific local planning jurisdictions within the city and surroundings, and analyzed in relation to their structural parameters. / The intersection between transactional and spatial data is explored to provide three approaches that contribute to the notion of the importance of social-political territorial subdivision as a driver of the residential market, while suggesting an initial route to develop accurate predictive models based on location rather than overly-detailed datasets for this city. The first approach consists of a comprehensive data summary that integrates several variables into graphical and geographical representations to portray urban characteristics of the city, reveal patterns and provide insights through the lens of the new housing market. The second approach involves the construction of quality-adjusted housing price indices for new housing. / The precision of a model with limited structural attributes is enhanced by including a combination of neighborhood fixed effects and factors that provide a qualitative assessment of the properties' socioeconomic context, a method that results effective to substantially augment coefficients of determination and lower residual standard errors. The scope of the price index is then expanded to analyze price dynamics according to locations and socioeconomic strata. Finally, the same methodology for the construction of the price indices is implemented to generate estimations for property area and prices at individual levels. / by Sebastian Perez Sarralde. / S.M. in Real Estate Development / S.M.inRealEstateDevelopment Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate

Thesis: S.M. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2017 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 63-64). / Big Data Analytics is a term that represents an entire spectrum of analytical applications utilizing significant quantities of data, ranging from optimization at one end of the spectrum, to gaining new insights at the other end of the spectrum. This thesis focuses on the latter, leveraging private, public, and manually developed databases at the MIT School of Architecture and Planning's Center for Real Estate's Real Estate Innovation Lab (REIL) to observe, dissect, and ultimately improve our collective understanding of the current state of urban technology databases. The thesis seeks to explore how companies are providing data within the realm of the built environment, through a study of the information products that they offer. To preserve the confidentiality of the original commercial databases and limit the scope of the investigation, the dataset for this study contains only the data fields from 31 unique databases provided by 14 commercial real estate data aggregators. In essence, the dataset for this thesis is a database of databases, stripped of their numerical information and focused on a study of the variation in data. For analysis this employs computational, statistical, and graphical methods to interpret the information provided by the commercial real estate data aggregators. With an increasingly digital future ahead, this thesis proposes a general framework for examining numerous databases and their respective approaches to the built environment. This thesis also explores the merits of specific processes and presentation methods that translate an immense and disparate array of information into user-friendly analytical tools. / by Ryan Michael Stroud. / S.M. in Real Estate Development / S.M.inRealEstateDevelopment Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate

Thesis: S.M. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2017 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 54-60). / The United States has a large supply of parking and with the adoption of autonomous vehicles, the demand for these spaces could change dramatically. Parking is among the most prevalent land uses occupying up to 31% of urban area. It is estimated that there are 3.4 to 8 parking spaces for each car in the US yielding 800 million to 2 billion spaces that could cover an area the size of West Virginia (Chester, Horvath, & Madanat, 2010). With fully autonomous vehicles expected on the consumer market by 2020, the $30 billion parking industry will experience enormous changes as cars evolve. This thesis models the effects of autonomous vehicles on the financial performance of urban parking garages. The future of parking and autonomous vehicles will be anything but smooth or certain, and this work harnesses the power of uncertainty through repeated random number simulation in financially modeling autonomous vehicles' impacts on parking garages. The results indicate that parking in the short term is a risky investment and in the longer term may not be a viable asset. As the only class of real estate explicitly built for vehicles, they have a high degree of exposure to changes created by autonomous vehicles. This is illustrated by significantly negative net present values and minimal returns of the simulation outputs. This exposure will continue to grow as the stock of parking spaces increases with minimum parking requirements for new construction. Recommendations from this research would be to limit new supply of parking to allow for greater utilization of existing stock, more beneficial use of urban land, and better use of construction and financial resources. / by Paige Pitcher. / S.M. in Real Estate Development / S.M.inRealEstateDevelopment Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate

Thesis: S.M. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2017 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 44). / The purpose of this research was to explore portfolio diversification by property type for Korean institutional investors in the U.S. real estate market. In the process, we analyzed the rapidly increasing Korean investment in the U.S. real estate market and identified the points cross-border investors should consider for proper asset diversification by property type. One of the main reasons investors make cross-border investments is to diversify their portfolios. Thus, cross-border investors need to properly diversify their investments by considering correlations between foreign and domestic properties. However, Korean institutional investors have shown an apparent preferential tendency for the U.S. real estate market, much more than other cross-border investors, and as such, they risk under-performing compared to investors with more diversified portfolio strategies. Therefore, in this research, 12 optimal portfolios were calculated by applying Markowitz's modem portfolio theory. Following this, the Sharpe ratios of calculated models without limitations of investment were compared to investment solely in Korean properties and U.S. office properties by Korean institutional investors. These analyses revealed considerable inefficiencies in the current international investment trend of Korean institutional investors. In addition, the comparisons of the optimal portfolios with correlations from more recent market data suggested that if Korean institutional investors continue investing in only office properties in the U.S. real estate market, their investment inefficiencies will become much larger than they currently are. Thus, we concluded that they should diversify their investment in U.S. residential, industrial, and retail properties and Korean properties rather than just investing in U.S. office properties and Korean properties. / by Chaungwon Cho. / S.M. in Real Estate Development / S.M.inRealEstateDevelopment Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate

Thesis: S.M. in Real Estate Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate, 2017 / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 54-58). / Corporate real estate is increasingly seen as a strategic resource contributing to organizational performance rather than a mere operational asset focusing on overall business cost efficiency. There is considerable upside to be realized in making workplaces more efficient, productive and more conducive to work performance. Yet, the question whether good design correlates to increased financial outcomes has not been explored much. This thesis studies the economic impact of workplace performance by linking post-occupancy analysis to financial outcomes. The paper uses two data sets to explore if a correlation exists between good design and financial value by linking workplace performance and effective rents - Gensler's post-occupancy Workplace Performance Index (WPI SM) data, and CompStak's Manhattan rental database. The premium effect of WPI-scored leases is best observed when analyzed with respect to location characteristics (neighborhoods) and time-fixed effect (lease commencement date) reflecting a premium over non-scored leases. At the same time, there is a statistically significant indication that Below Average Work Performance, as reflected by their lower WPI Score, have lower effective rents compared to non-WPI scored leases. Workplaces with high WPI (SM) scores signify higher economic productivity compared to their lower scoring counterparts. The study is a first step towards linking workplace performance to effective rents to highlight the financial implications of developing high performing workplaces. The conclusions from the study are of value to stakeholders involved - real estate developers, landlords, tenants, architects, interior designers, and institutional investors. / by Suneeth P. John and Zoya Puri. / S.M. in Real Estate Development / S.M.inRealEstateDevelopment Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Real Estate Development in conjunction with the Center for Real Estate

This study uses content analysis and a controlled experiment as data generation methods to investigate the precise nature of the largely unexplored relationship between the content of real estate news and activities in the real estate market. The theoretical base of the research is Kahneman’s two system view (2003) of cognitive processing, which is applied to an individual’s decision-making about the residential real estate market. The affect heuristic provides the theoretical basis for studying the relationship between the emotional content of local media information and decision making in the residential real estate market. The research question seeks to measure the “framing effect” of news on real estate market activity. It is posited that the way local real estate news is framed will influence transaction prices and the number of pending sales. A behavioral approach is utilized to understand the underlying relationship between a residential real estate market and a news article to audiences; an effect called frame setting. It is conjectured that when media coverage about the real estate market is negative there is more downward pressure on the market compared to when media coverage is more objective and includes descriptive statistics on the current real estate market.

Real estate brokerage has gradually progressed from growth to maturity since management regulations were executed. Since the government has ensured consumer rights by legislations, the confidence of consumers in real estate brokerage has been greatly enhanced. The success ratio of real estate cases has therefore increased. In addition, for the past two years, the economy has been recovering and the government has continued in its policy of subsidizing house loan interest. Real estate brokerage has therefore been highly prosperous for these two years. The internet has developed rapidly, and it is changing transaction modes in many industries with its low costs and capacity for rapid information transfer. It also puts industry leaders in a stronger position. The rules of the game have changed in industry. Corporations have to reevaluate business modes affected by the internet and consider the resultant changes. The character of real estate usually complicates transactions and thus influences the actions of buyers and sellers. The transaction therefore has many variables. Moreover the buyers are not aware of all of these variables. The brokers usually take advantage of the buyers¡¦ relative ignorance for their own professional gain. What is the brokers¡¦ advantage in this situation of information disparity? How do they utilize this advantage? In this study these questions will first be clarified and expounded. It will then be investigated whether the influence of the internet will lessen the need for professional intermediation or the brokers¡¦ information advantage. Finally comparisons will be made between the pre- and post-Internet world. Sinyi Realty Inc. is the only listed real estate company in Taiwan at present. According to Commonwealth Magazine market survey Sinyi Realty Inc. is the most trusted and best-known company in real estate brokerage. It even has the highest sales figures in the industry. In addition Sinyi Realty Inc. is the only real estate company ranking in the Taiwan Top 500. For these reasons it has been singled out as a case study for in-depth research in order to evaluate the possible influence of the Internet now and in the future. This study will begin with the analysis of Sinyi Realty Inc.¡¦s development background and competitive advantages followed by the internal and external changes arising from the Internet¡¦s influence. Finally the potential advantages, disadvantages risks, and opportunities will be studied and analyzed. It is hoped this study can act as a reference for real estate brokers as they formulate their development strategies in the Internet-influenced world of the future.