Real Estate Investment, From Statistics to Forecasting

Forecasting of real estate development is difficult because there is, amongst others, a lack of information about the existing and future stock. This is in particular the case with the nonresidential stock of buildings. For The Netherlands less or more complete economic statistics like the National Accounts and construction statistics are dating back to the fifties. On the other hand most transaction linked statistics of real estate agencies and the registration and analysis of these statistics in publications like, in the Netherlands, VastGoedMarkt and PropertyNL are available. Information about the physical, functional and economic aspects of the total stock of non-residential buildings and the expansion, renewal and withdrawal of it is nevertheless poor and incomplete. In this paper we combine within a macro-economic framework investment, construction and transaction statistics with the National Accounts and other statistics. By analysing capital formation from yearly investment to total stock we achieve better insight in the expansion and renewal of the stock of buildings and a starting position for better forecasting. For a better understanding of the need for modernisation and relocation of the stock of buildings we have to analyse the current stock and its capability for adapting to changing functions. Future real estate investment heavily depends on replacement and further investment for renewal, while investment for expansion of the stock is stabilising on a lower level than we know from the late nineties.