Lower-emission steel production and prefabrication create opportunities for Australian detached housing, but adoption does not establish improved outcomes. This critically conducted integrative review examines decarbonised steel framing using contemporary timber and conventional steel as bounded comparators. Academic, technical and policy evidence is appraised through qualitative coding and thematic integration informed by circular economy, life-cycle thinking, sustainable supply chains and socio-technical transitions. The synthesis distinguishes production-emissions reductions, material-specific design and delivery effects. Policy analysis identifies separate requirements for product classification, recognition of emissions evidence and implementation timing. Housing-delivery reform, manufacturer assurance and green-material support do not necessarily cover the same products or operate on the same timetable. Affordability is examined through production, installed construction, development expenditure, prices or rents, and ongoing housing costs; savings are not assumed to pass between these stages. The Conditional Assessment Framework connects supported findings and trade-offs to decision holders, evidence obligations and reassessment triggers. Its applied property contribution distinguishes benefit creation, recognition and realisation, providing an evidence-linked basis for procurement, completion and whole-life ownership decisions.
This study investigates behavioural contagion in the South African Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) market by examining herding dynamics between internationally diversified (offshored) and domestically focused (localised) REITs. Despite the increasing internationalisation of South African REITs, limited evidence exists on whether investors in local REITs imitate the trading behaviour of offshore-focused REITs, particularly during periods of market stress and directional market movements. Addressing this gap, the study assesses herding behaviour across REIT segments under normal, extreme, and asymmetric market conditions and evaluates its implications for market efficiency and portfolio diversification. The analysis employs the Cross-Sectional Standard Deviation (CSSD) and Cross-Sectional Absolute Deviation (CSAD) approaches, enhanced with extreme market quantile thresholds (5th and 95th percentiles) and directional market return specifications to capture nonlinear and time-varying herding effects. Equally weighted portfolios comprising 11 offshored REITs and 9 localised REITs were constructed using daily market data covering the period from 3 October 2017 to 27 March 2024. The findings reveal no statistically significant evidence of herding behaviour within or between REIT segments across daily, weekly, and monthly frequencies. This absence of herding persists during extreme market conditions and across both bullish and bearish market regimes. However, offshored REITs exhibit greater market influence, consistently demonstrating stronger leadership during both upward and downward market movements. These results suggest that investment decisions in the South African REIT market are primarily driven by firm-specific information and rational assessment rather than behavioural imitation or collective sentiment. The study contributes to the behavioural finance and real estate investment literature by providing evidence of market resilience and informational efficiency in an emerging REIT market. The findings further highlight the diversification benefits of REIT segmentation and the growing significance of internationally diversified REITs in shaping market performance.
This study examines the relationship between earthquake exposure and housing prices in Sriharjo Village, Imogiri District, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Using a hedonic pricing framework combined with Geographic Information Systems (GIS)-based spatial analysis, the study analyzes structural, neighborhood, and disaster-related factors associated with residential property values. Primary data were collected from 384 respondents through a household survey and analyzed using ordinary least squares (OLS), with quantile regression employed as a robustness check. The OLS results show that house size, land size, and number of rooms are positively associated with housing prices, while building age is negatively associated with property values. Accessibility also matters, particularly distance to the city center. Most importantly, each additional kilometer from the historical earthquake epicenter is associated with approximately 4.08% higher property values. Quantile regression confirms a positive earthquake-distance coefficient across the conditional housing price distribution, with statistically significant associations from the 0.25 to 0.90 quantiles. GIS analysis further reveals spatial variation in topography, settlement patterns, seismic exposure, and mitigation practices. Overall, the findings provide evidence that seismic exposure is associated with differences in housing values and highlight the importance of integrating disaster risk into housing and spatial planning.
Fiji has what the professional development literature prescribes for building a profession. Twenty-five gazetted rolls of the Register of Valuers, spanning 1987 to 2025 and analysed here for the first time, record what that produced. The register opened at 49 practitioners, peaked at 80 in 2002, and stood at 46 at the end of 2025, below the roll on which it began, with more than half of all persons ever registered having departed. The Native Land Trust Board, which created the profession through in-house training, now carries 4 valuers where it once carried 21, and two continuing professional development events took place in the decade after Fiji adopted international standards. One illustrative example shows what the erosion costs: a 658% variance between two valuations of the same property, in a market with no mechanism to detect it. A hazard model of exit by tenure projects 34 valuers in 2035 and 31 in 2040; the observed intake of 1.3 a year sustains a long-run register of 29, against the 2.0 needed to hold the present 46. Fiji adopted the forms of a modern profession without the capabilities to sustain them, a pattern consistent with capability trap theory. No comparable longitudinal study of professional capacity exists for any Pacific SIDS sector.
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has rapidly shifted from a specialist technological development to a mainstream consideration across professional, educational and organisational contexts. For property professionals and researchers, this development raises important questions about capability, judgement, ethics, governance and the future of professional work. This reflective article is based on the keynote presentation “Generative AI for Property Professionals and Researchers” delivered by Dr Biyanka Ekanayake at the 32nd Pacific Rim Real Estate Society Conference (2026).
