Real Estate Investment Trusts or more commonly known as REITs is one of the investment tools that is renowned for the nature of low risk, low volatility, moderate returns, and high liquidity for investors. REITS invest primarily in real properties and tend to receive regular rental incomes from real properties owned and managed by the Trust. In most situations, it may be deemed as a stock by investors. However, the risk borne is lower and has less fluctuations in terms of market price of the stock. Moderate risk takers should consider REITS as one of the investments in their portfolio. REITS started emerging in many countries only recently. Since the successful of the performance of REITs in the United States, numerous countries started planning to enter the REITs regime. The United Kingdom was one of the recent countries to enter into the tax efficient REITs regime. This took place early in the year 2007. At the moment, it ranks fourth in terms of market capitalization based on the Global REITs report 2008. Malaysia, with a long history of Unit Trust Funds with some recently converting to REIT, has yet to achieve the size of UK-REITs. This research is to analyse the performance of six (6) selected REITs in both countries. Nevertheless, prior to the performance analysis, the mechanism as well as the legislation adopted in regulating the respective REITs regime is discussed. In addition, factors which contributed to the variance of performance of REITs are presented and further discussions are made based on the performance analysis done. The findings and analysis showed that the total revenue was the main factor affecting the performance for both the largest M-REITs and UK-REITs. Furthermore, has also demonstrated that for every billion increase in market capitalisation, the profit margins generated by the REITs will raise by approximately 9%.

13 14Roof leakages of high-rise buildings involving concrete flat roof design in tropical countries 15 continue to be a serious problem. Currently, exiting methods of detecting potential leaks are 16 mostly destructive to the building material. Although the method of detecting a defect using 17 non-destructive measurement exists, current methods such as infrared thermography, 18 metal detector and humidity meter have varying constraints in their application. This paper 19 describes the potential use of microwave technology as an effective non-destructive tool to 20 monitor and investigate leakage of concrete flat roof due to failure of membrane layer. This 21 study was performed experimentally on flat room structures built for laboratory use and 22 according to Malaysian flat roof concrete proportions standards. Experiments performed 23 2 utilized a sensor equipped with essential parameters that enable control to sensor angle, 24 temperature and distance between object and sensor structure and designed to enable 25 numerous measurements in real time. The study determined that microwave technology 26 can be used to identify moisture content in concrete flat roof by analyzing properties of the 27 concrete roof and water. This proves to be an effective non-destructive method of 28 determining leakage problems in concrete flat roof in real time before the defects become 29 until the building leaks occur. Thus, a method of effective monitoring is needed to address 41 the issue. Non-destructive testing method is seen to have a potential to detect leakage 42 problem at an early stage and other hidden defects before becoming critical. This paper 43 describes the potential use of the microwave as a tool to monitor and investigate leakage of 44 flatroof concrete due failure of membrane layer installed on the roof. 45 46Many building defects reported involves the quality of building materials as well as 47 3 materials that are embedded (Chong and Low, 2006). Although the method of detecting a 48 defect using non-destructive popularity this time, existing methods is rather limited. Of 49 those approach adopted are infrared thermography, metal detector and humidity meter, 50 which, have certain constraints. Because of the limit, some destructive test methods had 51 been used to detect any anomalies involving the hidden flaw. This destructive approach will 52 damage the other components of the building. Hence, there is a pressing need to enrich the 53 method and use of non-destructive testing more effective and not damaging part of the 54 building to another. Inline with that, microwave applications in detection of different 55 materials properties are seen as having great potential to meet these needs. 56 57 Flat Roof for Malaysia Building 58Building materials identified as one of the factors that contribute to the defects in buildings. 59Interestingly, the building materials for a building consisted of a several of basic materials 60 such as plastic, metal, stone, glass and composite materials. The materials chosen...

Planning process has a significant impact on the ability of a construction project to success. This is the stage where the detailed directions are given which would affect the whole course of the project. The process is argued to be the most crucial stage which the principles of sustainability are integrated throughout the whole life of building. The purpose of this research was to investigate the Malaysian building project stakeholders' perspectives on the most significant strategies to integrate sustainability principles into the whole life of building through the project planning process. From the review of available literatures, there are 21 strategies to integrate sustainability principles during a building project planning process have been unveiled. A total of 357 Malaysian project stakeholders who have been directly involved in sustainable building project and/or the stakeholders who are judged to be knowledgeable on the project were selected to be contributed for questionnaire survey. The collected data were analyzed using cronbach's alpha measurement to assess their internal reliability, and frequency and descriptive analysis to measure the relative importance of the factors. The result shows that all the 21 strategies (the factors) to integrate sustainability during a project planning process were identified by the respondents to be very crucial to be implemented throughout the planning process of a sustainable building project in Malaysia. This paper offers ideas and recommendations on the sustainability integration strategies to be practiced throughout the project planning process towards delivering a successful sustainable building project. The concept is very useful to be a starting point for the development of a practical 'Sustainability Integration Framework' during the planning process of a sustainable building project in the future.

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The purpose of this paper is to implement and validate a decision making framework for building maintenance projects. The growing importance of maintenance sector not only in Malaysia but also increasingly globalized, the difficulty in selecting an appropriate procurement method and lack of research in this area provide an impetus for this research. There were 19 procurement selection criteria identified. In addition, there were 4 types of procurements methods which include outsourcing by specialist term contract, outsourcing by tendered schedule term contract, outsourcing by repair and maintenance contract and outsourcing by measured term contract identified to be the most popular procurement methods adapted by public universities currently and at the same time were considered most important. The decision making framework was developed based on AHP technique and principles. Expert Choice Software was employed as development tool where the criteria and alternatives were integrated into the framework. Finally, structured interview was conducted to validate the framework developed. The validation process was carried out through structured interview with selected public university.