Real Estate & Planning
Quality ratings and research tradition
The School of Real Estate & Planning, which is part of the Henley Business School, has been highly rated for research in successive Research Assessment Exercises. The School has an international reputation for its research, much of which is funded by external bodies, including the Research Councils, charities, the government, industry and other awarding bodies.
Distinctive features of the School
The School is the largest in the country for teaching and research in real estate and planning. The School's aims are to maintain the highest standards of postgraduate teaching for the real estate and planning professions and to undertake internationally recognised, cutting edge research into real estate, planning and land.
The School enjoys strong support from the surveying and planning professions and the property industry both for teaching and research.
Facilities and study environment
The School has recently moved into a state-of-the-art new building, offering the highest standard of teaching facilities, networked computer and wi-fi provision, allowing access to relevant professional and academic software and databases.
The Henley Business School has its own dedicated Resource Centre managed by professionally qualified staff who are on hand to help students with their information needs and to advise on the resources available.
Funding opportunities
The University offers a small number of awards in all subject areas for both research and taught postgraduate students. There are also Faculty and School scholarships. These are highly competitive. A number of awards are made annually to overseas students. Other sources of funding are available. Full details may be found on the Funding Support pages.
Research interests
The main research areas in the School are:
Real Estate Investment and Finance
This theme provides a focus for our research on financial and economic issues in commercial real estate with the aim of disseminating research findings academically and to work with stakeholders in the real estate finance and investment community. Research themes include: asset pricing models for real estate equities, CMBS products and derivatives markets; applications of option pricing theory and behavioural finance and economics; time series modelling and statistical properties of data generating processes; 'green' real estate economics; markets segmentation, forecasting; portfolio and risk management; liquidity in real estate markets. The group works in collaboration with a number of international industry institutions and has built numerous links with academics in universities worldwide.
Real Estate Appraisal and Management
The real estate appraisal and management group operates at the leading edge of developments in
the theory, policy and practice of commercial real estate management and appraisal, continuing
a long history within the School. Current and past members of the group have been instrumental in
almost all of the major changes to UK property valuation theory and practice over the last 40 years and recent work in this field includes work on the property valuation process in the aftermath of the
2007 financial crisis, development viability, the pricing of sustainable aspects of property and client influence in the valuation process. Over the last 15-20 years the group has played a leading role in providing the evidence for UK Government lease policy decisions and been a major influence on the changes to practice in this area. Other areas of interest include corporate real estate and issues surrounding property data.
Planning and the Environment
The School has a strong and longstanding interest in spatial planning
and the environment with active research and innovative teaching being undertaken in these fields. The themes of environment and planning have expressed themselves through several strands of
research. The overall approach to these themes embraces and draws on the interfaces and between theory and practice and shifts across scales from the neighbourhood scale through to global influences on space, place and land use. The intention is to produce knowledge that is applicable and insightful, acting to inform a range of stakeholders and to contribute to theoretical
debates. A key concern for researchers at Reading is to ensure that the research feeds back into
teaching for undergraduates and postgraduates, particularly given the pervasive nature and influence that planning systems and concerns over climate change have in the Real Estate and Planning disciplines.
Housing Economics and Finance
Housing economics and finance is a growing research area within the School with a strong interest in international and policy relevant work. Research themes cover: (a) housing economics at the international, national, sub-national and local markets; (b) housing supply, the regulatory environment, planning and government policies; (c) financial market linkages and their implications for the housing market; and (d) institutional and policy regimes and their impact on housing market outcomes. International collaborative studies are regularly undertaken.