Achieving Value Growth By Professionalizing Public Real Estate Management: Results And Conclusions From An Empirical Survey In Germany

The professional management of public real estate has made tremendous progress in recent years. There is no doubt that in most countries public real estate management (PREM) has still a long way to go until it can match the professionalism of corporate real estate manage-ment (CREM) or real estate investment management (REIM); but given the obstacles that have to be overcome to transform a public institution into an effective and efficient market-oriented player a lot has been achieved on all levels: the municipal, the state, and the federal level. The first aim of this study is to give a comprehensive overview of the state of the public real estate management in Germany by: ï Summarizing the results of the most important studies on this subject to date, ï Reporting the results of our own survey, ï Putting the results in an international context. // Our questionnaire-based survey concentrates on the 16 federal states in Germany. Almost all of them have transferred the responsibility for public properties to independent, state-owned agencies or corporations. However, these institutions differ greatly in respect of strategy, organizational structure, outsourcing of facility management services, and other details. Based on these findings we develop some conclusions, especially about important trends for the future. And our second aim is to develop a modified concept of value growth for PREM, which adapts the shareholder value concept and follows the development of CREM.