Hong Kong's anti-corruption agency, ICAC, is hailed as among the world's best having almost completely purged systemic corruption within a decade of its inception. This book explains how Hong Kong maintains the myth of a clean city and examines the prevalence of white collar crime in the city's property sector.

Periodic worldwide economic turmoil over the last few decades has created an environment in which the degree of risk of investment assets is now an important factor in their evaluation. Real Estate Investment: A Capital Market Approach is the first text to examine the effect of such changes on real estate markets, taking an in-depth look at three major areas of financial and economic importance within the real estate profession: * The time value of money and the valuation of cash flows * Risk and return in real estate * Portfolio management Real Estate Investment: A Capital Market Approach is aimed primarily at students on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in property investment or finance and MBA real estate specialists. The text is also of interest to fund managers, property researchers and professional investment valuers.

Hines, a noted authority and writer on domestic and international real estate, has conducted the first systematic research on this market and distilled her findings in one information-packed volume. M.A. Hines is convinced that to invest profitably in Japanese properties, the investor needs to develop an understanding not only of the investment market but of Japanese society, culture and economy. Following a survey of the present Japanese investment environment, the author goes into these issues in some depth, focusing particularly on traditional Japanese land tenure and more recent trends in land planning and control. Current land development patterns, policies and regulations and their effects on real estate investment potential are carefully evaluated. A chapter on financing sources and methods provides useful data on money supply, credit terms, current tax law affecting Japanese real estate investment and the institutions that make up the Japanese financial system. "Mortgage Banking"

Although Japanese real estate is an important and growing segment of the international investment market, the lack of solid information on the subject has made it difficult for foreign investors to take advantage of investment opportunities in that country. M. A. Hines, the noted authority and writer on domestic and international real estate, has conducted the first systematic research on this market and distilled her findings in one information-packed volume. A comprehensive guide for the real estate professional, it opens the door to what Professor Hines considers to be the most promising new frontier in this type of overseas investment. Hines is convinced that to invest profitably in Japanese properties, the investor needs to develop an understanding not only of the investment market but of Japanese society, culture, and economics, as well as of how these influence the way the Japanese do business. The only work of its kind in English, this authoritative new book will be essential reading for the real estate investor with an ambition to explore fresh opportunities in the international market.

M. A. Hines presents a comprehensive survey of the myriad factors involved in international real estate investing. Written specifically for practicing real estate professionals, portfolio managers, and students of finance and investing, "Guide to International Real Estate Investment" examines six principal types of property investment on a worldwide basis: housing and apartment buildings, hotels and motels, new towns, shopping centers and other retail buildings, office buildings and parks, and industrial properties. In addition, the author fully addresses such issues as financing, taxation, development trends, investment strategies, and outside influences on the real estate investment climate.

This book answers the question of how exactly property price indexes should be constructed. The formation and collapse of property bubbles has had a profound impact on the economic administration of many nations. The property price bubble that began around the mid-1980s in Japan has been called the 20th century's biggest bubble. In its aftermath, the country faced a period of long-term economic stagnation dubbed the "lost decade." Sweden and the United States have also faced collapses of property bubbles in the 20th and early 21st centuries, respectively. It has been pointed out that the "information gap" that existed between policy-making authorities and the property (including housing) and financial markets was a problem. In 2009, the IMF proposed the creation of a housing price index to the G20 in order to fill this information gap, and the proposal was adopted. Furthermore, in 2011, it was suggested that the next economic crisis would be caused by a bubble in commercial property prices, and it was decided to create a commercial property index as well. This book provides practical examples of how the theory of property price indexes can be applied to the issues of property as a non-homogenous good and a technological and environmental change.

Virtually anyone can make money in a rapidly rising real estate market. As recent events have shown, it's just as easy to lose money when the economy heads south. But the better real estate investors generally know when to buy and when to sell. They know how to maintain control over their properties under adverse circumstances. They know how to work with lenders and how to find and evaluate the highest and best uses for a particular piece of property. These are the people who can make money (and not lose money) in all real estate markets-something real estate expert Robert Lawless shows exactly how to do in this book. Lawless details the primary investment strategies used by many successful real estate investors. Readers will learn how to make profitable investments in residential and smaller commercial buildings whether the market is headed up or down, and whether they invest in Greenwich, Connecticut, or Ames, Iowa. The information this book contains can save novice investors significant time and money, while also leading to greater investing profits. Among other things, Lawless explains: What drives real estate values. How to use leverage-the effective use of debt-to increase returns. How to find the right lender, Realtor, lawyer, and other real estate professionals. Methods to negotiate profitable deals. General strategies for success-buy and hold, renovate and sell quickly, scout foreclosed properties, and more. Best, Lawless includes case studies, for both residential and commercial investments, that highlight strategies and outcomes under different market conditions.

DANNY SCHECHTER, "The News Dissector" has spent decades as a truth teller in the media, with leading media companies and as an independent filmmaker with the award-winning independent company Globalvision. A graduate of Cornell and the London School of Economics, Schechter was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard and a multiple Emmy Award winner at ABC News, where he was among the first to cover the S&L crisis. In 2007, his film IN DEBT WE TRUST was the first to expose Wall Street's connection to subprime loans, predicting the economic crisis that this book investigates. Schechter is a blogger, editor of Mediachannel.org, and author of nine books. He has reported from 53 countries, and lives in Gotham. He owns no derivatives or tranches.

Simon Kempf has developed hedonic (quality-adjusted) office rent indices for German metropolitan areas. His study explores new territory as it constructs, for the first time, such indices for Germany. The author thereby has taken into account the different qualities of the underlying lease contracts regarding location factors, lease factors, building factors, equipment and layout factors of the office rental unit - using more than 22,005 office lease contracts stored in the Rental Databank of IPD GmbH in Wiesbaden. This hedonic index construction methodology is well known among real estate researchers and statisticians, but it has been mainly used in the residential sector. As a second novelty the multiple imputation method in the statistical analysis to solve the problem of missing data is employed. Quality-adjusted office rent indices serve as market and economic indicators as well as a bench-marking instrument.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-sponsored enterprises that played a prominent role in the financial crisis of 2008, and the federal government have come to a crossroads. The government must make key decisions about their structure, and indeed, their very existence. The government has played an important role in the American housing market since the early 1930s, when the Great Depression ushered in housing programs to promote a stable society. The government's role expanded further during the recent housing and financial crisis -Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac now dominate the American housing market, backing more than 62 percent of new mortgages and holding more than $5 trillion in accumulated mortgage risk. In The Future of Housing Finance Martin Baily and his associates discuss the issues and options that policymakers face as they reassess the government's role in the U.S. residential mortgage market. While presenting diverse analytical perspectives, including a contribution from former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, all contributors agree that the government's support for mortgage financing in the recent past was too broad and deep but some role is necessary to maintain the stability of the housing finance market. The Obama administration has recommended reducing the role of Fannie and Freddie while replacing them with a private market approach, but continuing federal support for worthy borrowers. But what will Congress agree to? And how fast will it move on any initiative? Specific topics include: Introduction of a new system to reduce incentives that encourage excessive risk taking. Gradual withdrawal of Fannie and Freddie from the housing finance system. New approaches to regulating mortgage securitization, with financial stability as a primary goal. Use of government-backed guarantees through institutional structures designed to limit moral hazard.

This monograph critically reviews and updates real estate valuation theory, which is based on neoclassical economics, in light of developments in heterodox economic theory. Building on a comprehensive historical account of the evolution of value theory, the book uses new institutional economics theory and critical realism as lenses through which problems in standard valuation theory and practice are expatiated, and as the foundation for an alternative theory. The new theory is employed to explain major problems in real estate valuation that are beyond the capability of the standard theory, such as price bubbles in real estate markets, anchoring bias, client influence and valuation under uncertain market conditions.

This book examines London's transformation from the mid-Victorian "miracle" of low and diminishing crime to its status as a high-crime society at the outset of the twenty-first century. It treats six different types of misdeed--burglary, shopbreaking, shoplifting, confidence schemes, robbery, and drug smuggling--as representative of distinct phases in the evolution of criminal activity and the criminal-justice system in modern Britain. This is the first book to offer an expansive analysis of twentieth-century thieves and to challenge the notion that they operated in a self-contained underworld. It argues that to understand the growth of lawbreaking we must connect sensational and mundane offenses alike to their social and economic contexts, with a particular focus on how these contexts, including experience within the penal system, shaped criminal decision-making and expanded opportunities for transgression.

Investing in real estate can seem complicated, but once you understand the fundamentals of the real estate investing pyramid, you will be on your way to making riches.

But you must establish the building blocks that will lay the foundation of your portfolio. You must understand how value is created, how it is enhanced, and how it is maximized if you want to make the most of your investments.

Luckily, the laws of real estate exist to help you to make sound decisions. Many people have found out the hard way that when you break the laws, you get penalized. Consistently obeying the laws leads you to wealth.

Gain the understanding you need to outsmart others, and learn about all the laws of real estate--including the law of replacement, the law of supply and demand, the law of positive and negative, and the law of cycles.

Put your future into your own hands by learning the secrets that successful real estate investors want to keep to themselves. Equip yourself with the tools to plot a path to success with "The Secret of Real Estate Revealed."

Welcome to an informative and user-friendly guide on how to invest in, and profit from vacations rentals. Get a leg up in these times of lowered real estate value. Own a vacation home that will pay for itself when you're not using it. Go ahead and buy that getaway dream on the slopes or at the beach! The authors provide tips on where best to buy, which tax deductions you can take, and how to ready the house for even the pickiest of renters.

If you are serious about buying a home, then this handbook will be your guide as you search for that "just right" property. Joseph J. Pacelli, who has more than fifty years of experience in the real estate and construction industries, remembers when interest rates were at eighteen percent and no one wanted to buy a home. These days, things are different, and the smart money is looking to buy. With this handbook, you'll learn proven ways to avoid being trapped in a bad deal pick the right real estate agent to help you meet your goals deal with challenges during your search and until closing successfully navigate a landscape of erratic interest rates maximize the value of your investment

Get the answers you need to serious house hunting and buying issues with a handbook written in plain English. Be more informed and smarter than your peers and equip yourself with THE REAL ESTATE BUYER'S AWARENESS PLAN.