Is there added value in using different paradigms in real estate research

In the real estate industry much research is being conducted by practitioners and academics in order to develop and manage real estate successfully. Real estate is not a homogeneous phenomenon, as every asset is a composite product on a local market with many stakeholders. How do academics and practitioners in this field deal with all the perspectives and how do they create knowledge on what they find? As we know: science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones; but an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. This paper explores the possibilities to enhance the value of real estate research and the accumulation of knowledge by using different paradigms. It also addresses the rigour-relevance debate, to whether academic researchers and practitioners can colla¨boratively produce research or can they only irritate each other? Most of the real estate research is using a Positivist Empiricist paradigm. This paradigm is probably widening the rigour-relevance gap, because knowledge is not objective. Knowledge appears to be theory-laden and value-laden. Understanding other paradigms, such as Social Constructionism and Critical Realism can be helpful in understanding to how researchers can view reality and how knowledge can be generated and accumulated about the real estate industry.