Did the introduction of carbon tax in australia affect housing affordability?

The Australian carbon pricing scheme (carbon tax) was introduced and became effective on 01 July 2012. The introduction of the carbon tax immediately increases the cost of electricity to a number of industries such as manufacturing and construction. Households were also affected as a result of these costs been passed through the supply chain of the affected industries. The carbon tax policy was introduced to addresses greenhouse emissions and energy consumption in Australia. However, the carbon tax policy may have introduced a number of economic risk factors to the Australian housing market, in particular the impact of housing affordability. © (2014) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland

Effects of ethnic changes on house prices: Sydney cases

© 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the factors that contribute to the changes of house prices including ethnic factors. Australia is a multicultural country with diversified ethnicities. The median price of established houses (unstratified) in Sydney has reached a new record high of $910,000 in December 2015, increasing around 58.2 per cent from March 2011 [Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2015a]. However, the prices of some suburbs have increased more than prices of others. Design/methodology/approach: Six suburbs that represent ethnic majority originally including White, India and China will be selected as pilot studies. Hedonic regression analysis will be applied for the analysis based on 2001, 2006 and 2011 census data. Findings: It is found that the main drivers of house prices are the dwelling physical characteristics and accessibility to convenient transportation. The level of household income also plays an important role. However, the impact of changes of ethnic on changes of prices is not significant. Research limitations/implications: The study adds to the growing literature on the ethnicity changes on dwelling prices and is important for understanding whether some of the clusters of ethnic concentration or segregation effects property markets. This study is significant in its understanding of the main characteristics of ethnic changes of suburbs in Sydney. Practical implications: An implication is that policy makers can attract different ethnic groups and encourage multicultural communities when they formulate housing and planning policies. Originality/value: The relationship between ethnicity and house price appreciation is not extensively studied in Australia. This research contributes to the literature on the effects of ethnic changes on house prices and implications of policy formulation to encourage multicultural communities

Analyse Property Data Through Visualisation

People’s activities create 2.5 Quintilian bytes of data every day (Marr, 2018). The examples of activities include shopping, sleeping, property purchasing, selling or leasing, etc. A large amount of data is usually with high-dimensional geometry and multivariate characters. Traditional text-based data may be able to record the facts of activities, but the hidden story behind the data may not be discovered. Data visualisation is an instrument for reasoning about quantitative information and allows us to analyse data behaviours by understanding data patterns, trends and correlations that could not be detected by the traditional text-based data. This paper focuses on analysing property data for six suburbs in Sydney using visualisation. Data with 31 elements from the three-year censuses were used to create visual patterns for analysis. Parallel coordinates and dashboard techniques are applied for data visualization for the selected six suburbs. The results suggest that the well-designed data graphics is a powerful tool, and property data visualisation provides us with visual access to huge amounts of data in easily digestible visuals

Application of combined BIM and 3D point cloud on building deconstruction

While building information modelling (BIM) has been extensively applied to the design and construction stages, there has been only limited use of BIM for demolition or reconstruction phase in minimizing and managing demolition waste. This paper proposes the use of combined BIM and 3D point cloud technology for collecting and documenting of building material information and formulating strategies of deconstruction waste management. The purpose is to develop a methodology for improving accuracy of building material information, including information of reusability and recyclability; and reduce the cost of energy and environmental impacts. A building deconstruction project in Sydney was adopted in this paper and found an estimated total of AUD$1.5 million landfill levy can be saved based on the proposed methodology

Communal space design of high-rise apartments: a literature review

Satisfactory communal space in high-rise apartments helps to create a harmonious living atmosphere and enhance neighbourhood relations. This review summarises and analyses the research on the design of communal areas in high-rise apartments with consideration of five aspects: space division, universal design, security design, landscape design and decoration design. The aim is to achieve a comprehensive understanding of current design concepts relating to communal space in high-rise apartments and to identify key design considerations that are necessary for the development of sustainable high-rise apartments. The paper proceeds with three objectives: (1) to develop a comprehensive policy for communal space to support the sustainable development of high-rise apartments; (2) to identify research on the building materials that can be used to improve the environment of the communal spaces; and, (3) to identify areas that can improve the planning and management of open spaces in high-rise apartments with the help of existing information technology. Overall, this review provides some useful insights for the sustainable development of high-rise apartments in terms of shared-space design, while revealing gaps in the literature and areas for further research

Urban Land Use Efficiency Under Resource-Based Economic Transformation—A Case Study of Shanxi Province.

Shanxi, one of China’s provinces, has been approved by the State Council as the only state-level comprehensive reform zone for resource-based economic transformation in 2010. Consequently, the implementation of National Resource-based Cities Sustainable Development Planning (2013–2020) and The State Council on Central and Western Regions Undertaking of Industrial Trans-formation Guide were also introduced. As a result, many agricultural lands were urbanized. The question is whether the transformed land was used efficiently. Existing research is limited re-garding the impact of the government-backed transformation of the resource-based economy, industrial restructuring, and urbanization on land use efficiency. This research investigates urban land use efficiency under the government-backed resource-based economy transformation using the Bootstrap-DEA and Bootstrap-Malmquist methods. The land use efficiency and land produc-tivity indexes were produced. Based on the empirical study of 11 prefectural cities, the results suggest that the level of economic development and industrial upgrading are the main determi-nants of land use efficiency. The total land productivity index declined after the economic reform was initiated. The findings imply that the government must enhance monitoring and auditing during policy implementation and evaluate the policy effects after for further improvement. With the scarcity of land resources and urban expansion in many cities worldwide, this research also provides an approach to determining the main determinants of land use efficiency that could guide our understanding of the impact of the future built environment. Keywords: land use efficiency; land producti

Development of an ontology-based visual approach for property data analytics

Real estate is a complex market that consists of many layers of social, financial and economic data, including but not limited to price, rental, location, mortgage, demographic and housing supply data. The sheer number of real estate properties around the world means that property transactions produce an extraordinary amount of data that is increasing exponentially. Most of the data are presented through thousands of rows on a spreadsheet or described in long paragraphs that are difficult to understand. The emergent data visualisation techniques are intended to allow data to be processed and analytics to be displayed visually to enable an understanding of complex information and the identification of new patterns from the data. However, not all visualisation techniques can achieve such a thing. Most techniques are able to display only visual low-dimensional data. This paper introduces an ontology visualisation methodology to explore the ontologies of property data behaviour for multidimensional data. The visualisation combines real estate data statistical analysis with several high-dimensional data visualisation techniques, including parallel coordinates and stacked area charts. By using six residential suburbs in Sydney as a demonstration, we find that the developed data visualisation methodology can be applied effectively and efficiently to analyse complex real estate market behaviour patterns

A mathematical method to assess the yin-yang balance of commercial complexes' entrances

Shopping malls are important landmarks of modern and sustainable cities as they are substantial business and investment by themselves, and as they also facilitate the social activities of communities. Entrances to shopping malls provide a first impression to customers, thus affecting the business performance of the malls. This paper presents a method to assess the entrances of modern shopping malls by applying traditionally qualitative Feng shui practices quantitatively with an innovative mathematical model. The assessment is based on the manipulation of the yin-and-yang concept applied to the layout of Ming tang (bright court) as the focus of consideration. By applying this novel approach to three shopping malls in Guangzhou, China as a pilot study to match their commercial performance, our hypothesis appears workable. The ideology of balancing yin and yang may be practically meaningful to urban planningandthesuccessfulmeasurementofsuchbalancecouldshedlightonfuturestudies

Barriers to institutional investment in rental housing: a systematic review of market risks.

Housing practitioners and policy experts are advocating for an expansion in rental housing supply in contemporary cities around the world. The objective is to convince institutional investors to include rental housing investment in their investment portfolio to contribute to boosting housing supply. Unfortunately, the rental sector is characterized by numerous uncertainties and challenges, making it unattractive to institutional investors. With the growing attention to institutional investors in various housing market contexts, an understanding of the market risks (also known as barriers), is useful to inform future research and policymaking. Using a systematic literature review methodology, this paper synthesizes the extant literature on the market risks inhibiting institutional investment in rental housing. The review finds the following barriers: low profitability, non-progressive rent control policies, unclear target group for rented projects, poor landlord-tenant relations, inadequate property management and unreliable property market information. Among all the barriers identified, low profitability and inadequate property management had great influence on their investment decision. Firstly, institutional investors perceive rental housing investment as less profitable and unattractive in terms of project performance. Secondly, the lack of supporting structures for the property management sector contributes to derailing rental yields. Furthermore, the review finds that the position of policymakers on target grouping was unclear for projects under government assistance. In view of the identified barriers, this paper concludes that, although the idea of expanding rental housing supply seems laudable, ignoring these problems may be detrimental to housing markets in the long run. Rental markets in many countries are volatile, and not ready to receive institutional investors fully into the sector. An expanded rental sector could be improved or advanced if policy makers take the appropriate steps to resolve the identified challenges and make adequate structural preparations for large scale rental housing supply

The emergence of REITs in Ghana

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) are evolving in Ghana’s real estate market. As at mid-2021, Republic Bank and GCB Securities were the two publicly known institutions operating REITs in the country. With the passage of the 2019 REIT guidelines, all existing REITs were rendered invalid, pursuant to provisions that, REITs must be approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Ghana. Using exploratory qualitative methods, the study investigates on-going developments surrounding the formulation of REITs in Ghana. Interviews were conducted with institutional investors and policy experts on their perception on the new REIT guidelines and the conditionalities needed for developing a REIT sector in Ghana. Institutional investors were largely receptive of the new REIT guidelines but at the same time not enthusiastic about venturing into it. They exclaimed that, unless REIT yields are proven to be competitive against their existing assets, they may not consider it in the short term. To develop Ghana’s first REIT sector, there are three conditions to be met, namely, creating a conducive macroeconomic environment, improving the state of the real estate industry, and developing an effective legal and regulatory framework. The study concludes that, there is a market for REITs in Ghana to serve institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies, private equity funds etc. However, the right structures must be created to usher in more advanced forms of indirect real estate investments. Additionally, real estate companies must be encouraged to trade publicly on the Ghana Stock Exchange once the opportunity presents itself, to expand their financing options. The implementation of the REIT guideline is a major milestone towards negotiating, establishing, and operating REITs in Ghana