Decision-making in the management of property investment by Australian superannuation funds

Abstract

Decision-making in property investment by superannuation funds is an important investment decision, but it is different to their decision-making on other asset classes included in their asset portfolios. The large value and heterogeneous nature of individual pieces of real estate make the market for real estate relatively illiquid and subject to larger transaction costs than other asset classes. Based on interview surveys of Australian superannuation funds, using the analytical hierarchical process (AHP), we identified strategic decision-making as being the most important factor used by the superannuation funds when making decisions on the management of their property investment portfolio. Comments during the interviews indicated that their decisions were influenced by restrictions in their fund’s investment mandate and the level of funds that they had to invest. The AHP technique has allowed this research to provide a more in-depth understanding of the management of decision-making factors than previous surveys.

Conducting systematic literature reviews and bibliometric analyses

“…Articles have looked at R&D valuation (Chen et al, 2018), investments in R&D (Hamada, 2017) and market orientation (Bucic et al, 2017). Other topics that have recently attracted attention in the AJM include research on the board of directors as well as decision making with regard to investments (He et al, 2018; Hutcheson and Newell, 2018), bank locations (Heard et al, 2018) and the effects of board independence on decision making (Bird et al, 2018). The influence of the 2015 Qualitative Finance Special Issue is also visible in this map through the bursts in topics such as culture, employment and pension (i.e.…”

“…topics investigated in the special issue papers). This approach of burstiness also allows us to observe how certain methodologies increase in prominence, such as the usage of the survey methodology in 2018 (Batra et al, 2018; Hutcheson and Newell, 2018; Johnson et al, 2018). The results of the burstiness detection differ from those in the bibliometric analyses as the focus here is not on citations, but on topic popularity at a given point in time.…”

A real estate portfolio management risk assessment framework for nonlisted real estate funds in India

“…AHP has been used extensively in real estate and construction management research in the recent years and is an accepted and rigorous methodology. It has been used in communicating investment risk as part of the valuation process (Adair and Hutchison, 2005; Hutchison et al , 2005; Gupta and Tiwari, 2016), assessing CBD building quality (Ho et al , 2005), hotel investment decision-making (Newell and Seabrook, 2006), selecting facility location (Yang and Lee, 2006; Opasanon and Lertsanti, 2013; Chadawada et al , 2015), asset allocation (Chen et al , 2011), technical innovation in construction (Hardie and Newell, 2011), evaluating city competitiveness (Singhal et al , 2013), developing a workplace satisfaction index (Khamkanya et al , 2012), brownfield risk communication and evaluation (Wu et al , 2017), sustainable residential property development (Green et al , 2018), property investment decision-making (Hutcheson and Newell, 2018), apartment buying decision-making (Obeidat et al , 2018), physical asset management (Al Marzooqi et al , 2019), housing choice (Li, 2009) and project performance in a public–private partnership framework (Swamy et al , 2018).…”

Institutional investor attitudes to technology-enhanced university vertical campuses in the digital era

“…Recent research regarding Australian pension funds and their real estate exposure has largely focused on pension fund real estate decision-making (Hutcheson and Newell, 2018), real estate asset allocation strategies (Reddy, 2013, 2014) and the use of specific real estate investment vehicles by pension funds (Newell, 2008a). The potential for pension funds to invest in other university-related real estate sectors (e.g.…”

“…This has seen content analysis used extensively in a range of research papers in real estate and related areas as an effective methodology. This includes Baum (2017), Bollen et al (2011), Danielsen et al (2010), Dempsey et al (2012), Dombrow and Turnbull (2004), Doran et al (2012), Haag et al (2000), Hutcheson and Newell (2018), Lindholm et al (2006), Newell (2008b), Newell and Manaf (2008) and Seiler et al (2012).…”