Urban Economic Change And Property Investment

Decentralisation of economic activities and population suburbanisation has transformed the spatial structure of cities in the UK over the last thirty years. As part of this process new property forms have evolved including retail parks, out of town shopping centres and office parks. The paper examines the consequences for the property market and institutional property investors that have traditionally viewed property as a long term investment medium. The analysis begins by considering the context of urban economic change. The heart of the research examines the development of investment markets for new property forms including changes in comparative rents and yields and the adaptation of institutional attitudes and property portfolios. The empirical analysis is primarily based on data from IPD. The research will develop previous theoretical work by the author on the process by which ënewí (sustainable) property markets are established. This earlier work focused on new housing for sale in city centres and public sector housing estates and was published in Urban Studies (1996) and European Journal of Housing Policy (2002). The process was also considered in a paper on industrial markets in a paper in the Journal of Property Research (2003). This paper extends the approach to commercial property markets. The analysis examines the interaction of time series of rents, yields, development and institutional portfolios.