Editorial

Citation

Warren, C. (2011), "Editorial", Property Management, Vol. 29 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/pm.2011.11329aaa.002

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Property Management, Volume 29, Issue 1

The first issue of Property Management for 2011 brings another stimulating collection of articles from around the world. It is always interesting to reflect on the diversity of geographical locations from which articles in the journal emanate. During the past year the journal has published papers from most regions of the world including Europe, Asia, Australasia and Africa. It is pleasing to see that with increasing readership in Africa, Malaysia and China a lot more research is emanating from these regions and Property Management is at the forefront of publishing it. The number of research papers arising from North and South America together with the Middle East, however, is currently low and in order to broaden the scope of the journal Emerald is working with the International Real Estate Societies in these regions to encourage researchers to submit their papers for review. The journal is offering best paper awards at many of the IRES regional conferences with the objective of attracting quality researchers to publish in Property Management. It is anticipated that an issue of the journal will be dedicated to property management papers arising out of the Middle East and North Africa Real Estate Society Conference held toward the end of last year. This is a rapidly growing region with many interesting issues facing the professional property manager and a growing number of academic researchers working within the region.

Of equal interest, this issue of the journal has articles from Europe, Asia and North America and includes research focused on both housing and commercial property. The first paper by Holt, Eccles and Bennett is a comprehensive analysis of the issues faced by commercial building managers in accounting for service charges. This is a topic which has attracted much attention not just in the UK where the authors are located but in many regions around the world where operating costs are recovered under the terms of an occupancy lease. Then from Finland, Saari and Tanskanen present a model for assessing the quality of housing for aged occupiers. The paper provides a sound insight into the housing market of Finland giving particular attention to housing provision for seniors. The paper develops a model for assessing housing quality which could easily be adapted for application in other countries.

The third paper, by Lai, is the first of two papers in this issue which deal with issues related to discrimination in the use of land and property. Lai’s paper is a very comprehensive evaluation of the historical development of Hong Kong and provides some evocative insight into the discriminatory processes which were employed to the disadvantage of sections of the local populace. A paper by Aliyu, Kasim and Martin also deals with discrimination examining the use of land in California for the disposal of toxic waste demonstrating that authorities discriminate against areas occupied by certain ethnic minorities in determining the location of dumps. While dealing with a specific location, I am sure this provocative paper has application in many regions where governments need to locate facilities which are likely to have health and property value implications for the neighbouring inhabitants.

Then returning to Europe, there is an analysis of housing association property management in The Netherlands. Conijn and Schilder examine the power of the large institutions and the apparent value gap which exists between vacant possession value and tenanted investment value in the Dutch market. While focused on the housing market in The Netherlands, this paper has a broader application across many European markets and similar results could potentially be found in many regions.

I hope that the collection of papers in this issue provides both an academic analysis of property and market transactions as well as some practical tools that can be employed by professionals when evaluating property transactions. Please remember your feedback is always welcome.

Clive Warren