The Committee of Management serving for the year 1998/99:

Chairman Peter Damesick, Richard Ellis St Quintin

Hon. Secretary Rachel Pepperrell ** Investment Property Databank

Sarah-Jane Topping * Barber White

Hon. Treasurer Kevin Swaddle, Investment Property Databank

The Committee Jonathan Bray, Property Intelligence

Stephen Brown, RICS

Judith Cooper, Judith Cooper Associates

Bill Hughes, Schroders

Tasos Kotzanastassis, PRICOA

Vicki Law, University of Reading

Nick Price, PMA

Sarah Sayce, Kingston University

Karen Sieracki ** Kaspar Associates

Andrew Smith, AMP Asset Management

Neil Turner, SPP Investment Management

Andrew Waller, Ernst & Young

Membership Secretary, Fiona Trott

* Co-opted during the year ** Retired during the year

Previous Chairs of the Society

1997/98 Paul McNamara

1996/97 Paul McNamara

1995/96 Paul McNamara

1994/95 Keith Steventon

1993/94 Judith Cooper

1992/93 Colin Lizieri

1991/92 Rachael Unsworth

1990/91 Rachael Unsworth

1989/90 Brian Waldy

1988/89 Brian Waldy

1987/88 Brian Waldy

On assuming the Chairmanship of the Society of Property Researchers at last year’s AGM, I said that my principal aim for the coming year would be to work with the Committee to consolidate and build upon the evident strengths of a flourishing Society. Thanks in no small part to a thriving inheritance from our previous Chair and Committee, I believe that the past 12 months have seen substantial success in the Society’s activities.

My initial tasks as Chair following last year’s AGM included making a presentation to Paul McNamara, on behalf of the Committee, as a mark of appreciation for his energy and commitment in the role of Chairman over the previous three years. It was an equally pleasant duty at the SPR annual dinner to announce the award to the guest speaker, Peter Evans, of a Fellowship of the Society of Property Research in recognition of his outstanding contribution to property research. This is the fourth such award the SPR has now made, previous recipients being Russell Schiller, David Cadman and Honor Chapman.

The foundation of the Society’s strength and success is, of course, its membership. In 1998 the membership of the Society increased substantially with the very welcome incorporation of the Property Information Group as a Special Interest Group within the SPR. I am delighted to be able to report that over the past 12 months the membership of the SPR has grown further to reach a current total of 426 members. It is particularly pleasing to note that this number includes 72 new members joining in the course of the year. Our growth in membership reflects, in part, increased recruitment into property research over the past 12 months, a sign of the current strength of the property sector and its demand for research. I am pleased to offer a very warm welcome to all our new members and perhaps particularly those who are new to property research.

The Society has had a very active year in terms of events, both those organised by the Committee and increasingly by the Special Interest Groups which have gone from strength to strength. I am very glad that the events programme in the past year has reflected two features which I hoped would materialise in 1999, namely more joint events with other groups and further development of the SIGs.

At the start of the year, we held a very successful joint event with the Investment Property Forum to review the economic and market outlook for 1999 – a similar event is being planned for early 2000. There was also a well-attended joint seminar with the Cambridge University Land Society on "New Forces in Property: Cycles, EMU and Securitisation". Later in the year SPR joined with the Leisure Property Forum for a special seminar on prospects for the leisure park market.

Other events in 1999 included a talk by Linda Steel of IdeaChange on the role of the property analyst in a changing job market. The Society also held a series of three seminars, which covered the results of the SPR’s own Data Project, issues surrounding official floorspace statistics and the role and relevance of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to property research.

In October, for the first time in three years, the Society held a residential seminar weekend. This was held in Northern Ireland at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown. Around 30 people attended what proved to be an extremely worthwhile event, on which there is a fuller report later in this review. Vicki Law, Nick Price and Kevin Swaddle are to be congratulated on their efforts in organising the weekend and special thanks are also due to Stanley McGreal and his colleagues at the University of Ulster for their great help and hospitality.

There has also been a very active programme of events run by the various Special Interest Groups. These are covered in greater detail elsewhere in this review under the separate SIG reports. It is clear that SIG’s are now a major strength of the Society. I said a year ago that I hoped 1999 would see further development of SIG’s and I am therefore very pleased that the Society can now boast two new, fully constituted Groups for Investment and Retail. This is a most welcome development and Paul Clark, Paul McNamara and Edmund Camerer Cuss deserve thanks for their efforts in bringing these new Groups into being.

Reports of SPR events have been very well covered in the Newsletter this year and Judith Cooper has done sterling work in producing a number of bumper issues. Sadly, Judith feels she must step down from the Committee this year in view of other commitments. She has acted as Newsletter Editor over a number of years and her contribution will be greatly missed.

The biennial SPR Salary Survey was carried out again in 1999. Tassos Kotzanastassis took on the significant task of preparing the survey report which, I am sure, will be closely studied by members.

The SPR has continued its participation in the Bank of England Property Forum over the past year, notably with respect to submitting a comment on the research considered by the Forum on the analysis of secondary property performance. This year the SPR Committee decided that the Society should follow the example of other bodies such as RICS and the IPF with respect to their representation on the Property Forum in making SPR representation on the Forum a responsibility of the Chairman.

Wearing my SPR Chair’s hat, I contributed to a special session at the RICS Cutting Edge conference this year on setting the real estate agenda. This is an issue which is likely to gain a higher profile with the establishment of the RICS Property Research Foundation. The SPR Committee has been watching developments on this front with interest, although as yet without any direct involvement in this new initiative. It is my own view that, given the size and strength of the SPR membership, the Society can justifiably claim to be the representative body of property researchers and will therefore have a clear interest in the Property Research Foundation. However, the great majority of our members are not affiliated to the RICS and it is to be hoped that the Foundation will fully recognise that a large, if not the main, constituency of interest in the property research community lies outside the RICS itself.

One area of activity where there remains scope for improvement by the SPR is the development of its public profile commensurate with the current size of the membership. I touched upon this issue last year, echoing Paul McNamara’s observation that the SPR should be making greater efforts to "punch its weight" in this respect. For example, we do need to put more effort into getting reports of SPR events into the property press. Hopefully, over the coming year greater success in this area will be recorded.

One further aim for the Society in 1999 was to use its available resources selectively and carefully to support projects and initiatives that would be of benefit to the property research community. Following approval at last year’s AGM, the Committee sanctioned the provision of a modest contribution towards the costs of a research project designed and commissioned by the SPR Occupiers Group alongside other sources of financial support. The Committee has also approved expenditure to take further the development of a Directory of Data Sources.

The SPR’s achievements over the past year have owed a great deal to the efforts and enthusiasm of the Committee members and the convenors of the Special Interest Groups, and, of course, to all those who have given their time to speak at our various events. Our membership secretary, Fiona Trott, has continued to provide excellent support to the Committee and the membership, and has in the past year assumed responsibility for the SPR website.

During the year, Rachel Pepperell went on maternity leave and therefore had to retire from her position as Honorary Secretary. Thankfully, the Committee was able to co-opt Sarah-Jane Topping to re-join us to fill Rachel’s place. Karen Sieracki also stepped down during the year after very ably serving on the Committee for several years. A number of other Committee members are taking their leave as the year closes – Bill Hughes, Neil Turner, Sarah Sace and Tassos Kotzanastassis. All have made important contributions to the Committee’s work and the SPR is fortunate that members of their calibre and commitment have devoted their time and energy to the benefit of the membership. The continued success of the Society will depend heavily on similar levels of commitment and effort on the part of members of the new Committee.

The SPR has enjoyed an active year in 1999, with a growing membership and further development of its Special Interest Groups. The Society is in good shape for 2000 and I am confident that its positive evolution will continue in its thirteenth year.

Peter Damesick

October 1999

A final estimate of the Society’s finances will be presented at the AGM in November. However, our bank balance is somewhat higher than I had anticipated when I prepared my budget last November. Although we have spent more on events than was originally planned, less than the budgeted amount has been spent by the Special Special Interest Groups and the sum voted at last year’s AGM to support the Joseph Rowntree Foundation was never drawn upon. An active year in the job market for property researchers has also boosted the Society’s income from the distribution of recruitment advertisements.

Kevin Swaddle

Efforts during the year have focused on completing the written conclusions from the consultation exercise. This suffered a setback when a near final draft of the paper was lost in a hard disk failure on the editor's PC, but the position has now been retrieved and the report is expected to go to production shortly. Meanwhile, however, the headline results were presented at a seminar in May, and this was followed by two other presentations on data related issues.

One fundamental data weakness identified by the overwhelming majority of those who participated in the study was a lack of suitable floorspace statistics. The Society has taken the opportunity to respond to a DETR consultation exercise on this subject, highlighting the extent to which more reliable indicators would facilitate good quality research.

A further area of activity is the compilation of a directory of information sources in database form, which will lend itself to distribution in hard copy or electronic form. The preliminary work on this is being undertaken at the University of the West of England, supervised by Peter Wyatt.

This has become the Births, Deaths and Marriages section of the Annual Review. This time last year I reported the nuptials of PIG and SPR as well as the passing of a couple of inactive groups. This year, I have a birth, a coming of age, two shufflings off of mortal coils and a hanging-on-in-there to announce.

Three years after its inception, the Society’s Special Interest Group initiative is generally in a healthy state. During the course of the last 12 months, Edmund Camerer Cuss has established a Retail Group and Paul McNamara has joined with Paul Clark to steer the Investment Group over various administrative hurdles to gain recognised status. Congratulations to both Groups. SPRIG brings the number of official groups to four, joining the Property Information Group, the European Group and SPROG. These are all successful and active groups and detailed reports from their Convenors follow.

The two tombstones we have erected are over the Central London Group and the Property Company Analysis Group, due variously to other work commitments and lack of support. Thank you to Paul Ryan and John Atkins for their efforts in trying to get these groups off the ground. The loss of these groups is sad rather than tragic. If members of the Society are not sufficiently interested in a Group’s activities to keep it alive, there is no point in doing so by artificial means. On a happier note, Paul Mitchell assures me that (in spite of appearances to the contrary) the Quantitative Methods Group is resting, not deceased. I hope he succeeds in thawing it from cryogenic suspension during 2000.

The first Special Interest Groups were set up following the Society’s Annual General Meeting in November 1996. The idea was to provide SPR with a more flexible structure, capable of accommodating the varied interests of its members and their desire for depth as well as breadth of debate on particular topics. Anyone who would like more information about the Special Interest Group can contact me on 0171 482 5149.

Kevin Swaddle

The European Special Interest Group was established in October 1997 and received official recognition from the SPR Committee in February of 1998. The group now has a membership of 35 drawn from a wide range of organisations including financial institutions, surveying consultancies, academic institutions, private equity property funds, investment banks and property investment companies.

During 1999, the group organised several events, some specifically designed for SIG members, whilst others were used to communicate the Group’s specialist knowledge to the wider membership of the SPR.

Two major events were organised by the group during 1999. The first was the well-attended "Strategies in Europe – Direct or Indirect Property Investment" seminar held in July. The group was honoured to welcome the two speakers, who were certainly very well qualified to talk on the subject matter. Peter De Haas is the Property Portfolio strategist for the Dutch pension fund PGGM and Ralph Wood the Portfolio Manager for the French insurance group AXA. Both speakers were well received by the 40 members who attended the evening seminar at the RICS HQ in Great George Street.

Another very successful and well-attended SPR-wide event was also held at the RICS on October 21^st. "Property Performance Measurement – The latest developments in Europe" was a seminar presented by Rupert Nabarro from Investment Property Databank. The event, aimed at those members of the SPR wishing to find out more about European property investment and performance measurement, was also well attended by SPR members. Rupert’s paper was a fascinating insight into some of the problems faced by IPD in developing a fully comparable set of property measures across the European Union.

In August, Ali Parsa from South Bank University presented the latest findings of his research into Central and Eastern European property markets at special interest group meeting. Ali is also hoping to present an event for the wider SPR membership in February 2000 which will be titled "International Investment Strategy: Emerging Markets with a focus on Central Europe". The proposed meeting will examine current research on the globalisation of real estate markets and urban development in Prague, Warsaw and Budapest. The work is currently being conducted by Ali Parsa (South Bank University) and Stanley McGreal (Ulster University). The research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The focus group meeting will invite representatives from the Institutional Investment Market, developers, agents and academics with direct interest in real estate in the region. Members of the SPR will be invited to attend and make up the audience and will have the opportunity to enter into discussions with the focus group following the formal presentation.

Other events will also be organised for 2000 and all members of the SPR will be kept informed and are more than welcome to attend. The group will continue to work on a number of other initiatives during 2000 in order to promote the interests of property professionals who have been given a pan-European brief. An important current project is the agreement for members of the European Special Interest Group to join the European Real Estate Society at a reduced rate.

Anyone interested in contributing to this initiative should contact the convenor of the Group, Neil Turner at SPP Investment Management on 0171 590 2250 or neil.turner@spp.co.uk.

The Occupiers Group, known as SPROG, was the first special interest group within SPR and is still one of the most active. The Group’s aims are to promote greater understanding of occupational issues, to open a network for those interested in occupational research, to organise lectures/seminars and to actively promote occupier research by encouraging others to commission research projects.

Last year SPROG held four very interesting and thought-provoking meetings:

The attendance at the meetings varies between 15 and 35. Attendees have been from a range of backgrounds, property occupiers, surveying firms; accountancy firms; consultants, architects; investors and research organisations.

The arrangement SPROG has with the UK branch of NACORE, the International Association of Corporate Real Estate, is working well. Members of NACORE have the right to participate fully in the workings of the Occupiers Group in return for an administrative fee. Typically, about half the attendees at the SPROG meetings are from NACORE and this helps to give the meetings a good balance.

SPROG has been highly influential in kick-starting an investigation into a major research programme for occupiers. A total of £22,000 has been assembled including a £2,000 contribution from SPR, which was agreed at the AGM last year. A scoping project, which is also funded by NACORE and the RICS, will be commissioned early in the New Year. This programme will investigate the links between real estate and facilities and organisational performance. Topics covered might include:

SPROG has also initiated a book prize for students of real estate in collaboration with the Estates Gazette. In the first year this prize will amount to at least £750 (perhaps more following the AGM). The prize will be given to the best paper(s) submitted on the subject of corporate real estate by any full time property student.

We would welcome your views on SPROG’s progress and plans for next year.

Christopher Hedley

Our main event of this year was an evening with the major internet players in the property world, analysing what effect the internet would have on property and property information by the year 2003. There was a good mix of opinions and we hope to revisit this topic in 2003 to see how accurate our crystal ball gazing was. Thanks go to the speakers who also helped to sponsor the event.

We seem to got a reputation for social events and this year we ran a wine tasting comparing old and new world wines. It was a good opportunity to meet some new people and have a chance to talk about wine and property.

Our final event before the AGM was a trip to Bluewater Shopping Centre. We had an excellent talk about the philosophy for the development and then a chance to walk round and review the tenant mix (well go shopping and eat!).

Morag Smith and I were pleased to get the opportunity to speak at the Study seminar in Belfast. It gave us a chance to review how ‘information services’ are viewed by researchers and to learn that researchers do not necessarily equate libraries with information. We hope to be able to build on this for our members. The weekend was both informative and fun and I would recommend other special interest groups to book a slot at next year’s.

Plans for the future? Our next event will be a short series of workgroups on understanding financial reports and accounts aimed at people new to the profession or to financial information. We are still avidly awaiting the Data Working Party Report as we feel we will have a lot to offer this process. As information professionals we hope that we may know how to fill some of the gaps in information provision that this reveals or that we can begin to address ways of collecting that data. We would also like to help with the planned Sourcebook. Some work was begun by us before merging with SPR last year and it would be nice to resurrect that.

We have now been part of SPR for a full session and feel we have benefited from this relationship both in terms of the administrative help and more varied events for our members to attend. We hope to build on this over the coming year and look forward to seeing you all at events we organise.

Cathy Linacre

Following a circular issued to SPR members in summer 1999, Paul Clark (PMA) and Paul McNamara (Prudential) submitted a request for formal recognition by the Committee for SPRIG. At that time, 18 confirmations of interest from SPR members had been received.

The aims of the group are to provide a forum where property researchers can discuss and debate:

A first meeting of the reinvigorated SPRIG is programmed for 2nd December 1999 at which Paul Mitchell (Prudential) will give a presentation on the relationship between gilt and property yields. This will be followed by a discussion of the plans and future direction for SPRIG. Events being planned for the New Year, include the intention to run a series of seminars on "risk" and property investment management.

Anyone who has not yet registered an interest in the group and would like to do so should contact either Paul Clark (at PMA, 0171-379-5130) or Paul McNamara (at Prudential Portfolio Managers Ltd, 0171-548-3131)

Paul McNamara

This is the newest of SPR’s Special Interest Groups. At the moment, the Group has around 40 members including retailers, academics, agents, investors, developers, information officers and research house luminaries. It is clear however that there are many SPR members who have yet to catch on to the Group’s existence. The convenors, Louise Findlay, Brenna O’Roarty, and Edmund Camerer Cuss will be spreading the word inside and outside the Society.

The inaugural meeting at Donaldsons in October was well-attended, and heard a paper by Diane Brown, Head of Property and Consultancy at Experian. Her theme was the way in which the science of assessing locations and trading levels has moved on in recent years, the new tools involved, and the changing relationship between landlords and tenants. Issues touched on included household profiling instead of postcode profiling, shopper flow models, town benchmarking, site quality indicators, the generic drivers of retail performance, rental hot and cold spots, pedestrian flow modelling, and of course the impact of e-commerce. A lot of ground was covered in an informative and easily digestible way, and the Group was very grateful to Diane for kick-starting their programme.

The Group discussed the focus of their future activities and began organising their programme of events. A questionnaire is to be circulated among Group members not able to attend so that their views can be taken into account, but it seems clear that the broad spectrum of professional and academic involvement is going to ensure a varied selection of speakers and some pretty challenging debates.

Edmund Camerer Cuss

This Group is intended to provide an opportunity for discussion of quantitative techniques which could be applied to models of the property market. Moves to establish it have unfortunately made no progress over the year. This is entirely due to my inability to devote time and energy to the task, given a very heavy workload.

Although effectively dormant, my strong view is that, if sufficient time and energy were invested in the initial set up, the SIG would become an active and successful element of the SPR. Its seeds lie in an informal group, independent of the SPR, which met successfully on a number of occasions a few years ago. Thirty-three people have expressed interest in the SIG; at least half of these have such a strong interest in the area that they are likely to become active members. Clearly, more will emerge. From the mix of people expressing interest, the SIG could play a valuable role in bring academics and practitioners together.

On these grounds, the SIG has a future and should not be allowed to die away. As I age (mature?), my interests are moving away from this area although I still have an interest. The task for me is possibly to find someone younger who has the energy and can be coalesce with my vision jointly to get the SIG on the road. Anyone who is interested in the Group or in helping me in this task should contact me on (0171) 548 3299 or can email me at paul.mitchell@ppm-uk.com.

Paul Mitchell

Salary Survey

The key findings from the Society’s biennial survey of salaries and benefits were as follows:

Tassos Kotzanastassis

The Belfast Seminar Weekend was in many respects a memorable occasion. Not least for its formal content. It included three speaker sessions on three different areas of the property market - the retail market, boom and bust markets exemplified by the Indonesian and Irish experiences, and the Office Market. The aim of the speaker sessions was to cover relevant subjects for all attending, and to include something for everyone.

The speakers on the retail market, Christine Reeves, Strategic Planning Researcher with Tesco, and Peter Hobbs, formerly Head of Research at Boots Properties, both illustrated the significance of successful synergies, and customer and geographical information. The importance of tailoring stores to meet the needs of local markets was demonstrated by both speakers through advanced and information rich processes. The development of databases and understanding of both customers and retailers requirements was key to both companies in creating successful synergies between customers, retailers and investors.

In the second session three speakers, James Young, Managing Director of Property Research International (Ireland), Brian Turner Head of Research, Hamilton Osborne King and Paul Scales, Director, Pacific Investments Asia Ltd., discussed the impact of boom and bust economies on the Irish and Indonesian property markets. The current boom in Ireland was discussed with reference to its future where alternative positions were presented of ‘Celtic Tiger’ or ‘Piranha Economy’. Paul Scales discussion of the boom and bust cycle that Indonesia has experienced showed some insight into both how the Irish economy has grown at such a rate, and also what its future might be. Paul’s personal insights into the workings of the Indonesian property market, made this a particularly rich and insightful talk.

The final speaker session focused on modelling and forecasting the office market. Again the two papers from Colin Lizieri, University of Reading and Russell Chaplin, Investment Analyst at Property Market Analysis, complemented each other, providing a rounded view of the topic in question. Colin showed how, by producing more sophisticated multiple equation models, greater insight can be gained into the operation of the property market. The underlying trends of the market can be understood and modelled in relation to other economic factors at play. Russell then went on to look at forecasting of rents, capturing turning points in office rents, and ranking performance in the three main property sectors. It was shown that in both areas the naïve model of ‘the direction of growth this year will be the same as last year’, while not always capturing the correct levels and turning points, through never forecasting a turning point when there wasn’t one was actually a less costly method. The two papers showed the complexity of the market in understanding and modelling the underlying market trends and in accounting for shocks and changes in the market.

Vicki Law

The current incarnation of the Society’s website is a year and a half old. The site has an area available to the public at large which includes the mission statement of the Society, information on the Special Interest Groups and details of how to join. The Members Only section carries reports of events and meetings, a calendar of forthcoming events and a database of news and articles going back to September 1997. To access this section, which includes a full membership list, you need an id and password.

Progress this year has not been easy. Fiona Trott took over from Scarlett Palmer as webmistress early in 1999. She had a steep learning curve to climb but has managed this admirably.

The Committee believes that the website has now reached a crossroads and that there are a number of alternative directions in which it could go. A working party has been set up to consider the future of the site and it is hoped to report progress at the AGM.

For more information about the Society,

please contact the Membership Secretary:

Fiona Trott

St Mary’s, Gandish Road

East Bergholt,

Suffolk, CO7 6UR