Roy T. Black

The use of information versus asking price in the real property negotiation process

This paper examines the use of asking price in the real property negotiation process and whether it can potentially bias results. Theoretical work on the limited processing capacity of the human mind suggests the research hypothesis that negotiators will devalue difficultly processed critical information in favour of cognitive shortcuts (called heuristics) such as asking price. The analysis of data gathered through a series of experiments revealed that the manipulation of asking price led to the manipulation of both buyer opening offer and eventual settlement prices, thus indicating the use of asking price as a shortcut and its strong potential as an agent for bias.

Does contingent reward reduce negotiation anchoring

This article examines the role of contingent reward in reducing negotiation anchoring. A case study approach was adopted in the investigation undertaken. Five residencies were offered for sale and university students were assigned the task of negotiating the sales price of one of the houses. The results showed that where no asking price was given the settlement price was consistently lower than for those of incongruously high asking price. It is felt that these results are less biased than previous studies as a system of rewards was offered as the study was a step towards a real life setting.

Expert property negotiators and pricing information, revisited

Builds on a previous study and examines the influence of asking prices as anchors in the real property negotiating process. Previous studies have shown that the human mind uses short cuts (heuristics) in process information. Describes a study which gives further evidence that negotiators familiar with real property will, in many cases, devalue cognitively difficult pricing information and base their negotiation expectations on the seller’s asking price. Concludes that the seller’s asking price is thus a potential source of bias.

A Note on Ranking Real Estate Research Journals

An understanding of how thirty real estate journals are perceived for promotion and tenure and for professional applicability was sought by surveying members of the two most important real estate academic organizations. Several subgroup comparisons were made revealing some common perceptions but a significant amount of disagreement as well. Among findings robust across the surveyed community were that the Journal of the American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association (changed to Real Estate Economics in 1995) is the most important outlet for promotion and tenure and the Appraisal Journal is the most important outlet for professional applicability. Two distinct journal groupings emerged: an academic group composed of eight journals and a professional group of twenty. Copyright American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association.

Corporate real estate as a human resource management tool

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how a firm can incorporate real estate strategy with its core strategy, using the workspace to support its human resource objectives. The intent is to examine how important the quality of the workplace is to employees and the resulting impact it can have on productivity, loyalty, satisfaction, and retention in a knowledge industry.Design/methodology/approach – The study uses a survey to gather data on employee opinions about the importance and quality of workplace features. Responses are compared for statically significant differences using ANOVA among groups of employees to determine if opinions differ by sex, position in the firm, and location among newer and older facilities. The results are evaluated in the context of the firms core strategy and objectives.Findings – The results indicate that employees at Alston & Bird, LLC, the law firm studied, are satisfied with the overall quality of their workspace. However, differences exist between workers in d...

Manufacturing versus Distribution: Implicit Pricing of Real Property Characteristics by Submarket

This article develops and tests the idea that the industrial real estate market is an aggregate market consisting of at least two submarkets—manufacturing and distribution. While there is no observable difference in implicit pricing of most industrial property characteristics across these two submarkets, some property-characteristic implicit prices do differ. Therefore, manufacturing and distribution submarket property-pricing functions are best estimated in aggregate, while making allowances for variability of coefficients on some property characteristics. For this sample of 331 industrial property sales from the southeastern region of the United States, the two submarkets vary with regard to implicit pricing of building volume, below-average building condition, site area, and dock-high doors.