Market forces best for real estate, expert believes

Press, 1 June 1988, Page 59

Market forces best for real estate, expert believes

By lAN COLLINS, journalist, Lincoln College

The marketplace will determine a city’s residential profile and its people’s accommodation preferences, and it is not the role of the real estate industry to make judgments about the social desirability of various housing forms.

That is the view of real estate authority Dr Donald Weideman of the University of Alberta, Canada, who has been visiting New Zealand, and meeting Valuation and Property Management staff at Lincoln College. “if the market doesn’t accept a new form then it won’t proceed,” he says.

“For example, in Canada, the condominium form was a long time getting off the ground. It was promoted initially as affordable housing for lower income people — essentially cheap housing for poor folk — and the market didn’t respond.

“Eventually condominiums came to be seen in ‘lifestyle’ terms — you can come home, shut the doors, have no property maintenance worries, have a

building superintendent on hand etc. — and they became ■ desirable. “However, in a place like New Zealand, if people see land ownership as more important than other lifestyle considera-

tions then the individual house on its individual piece of land will continue as the preferred form. “Obviously you still have the physical space in New Zealand, but once people lose the choice

of having space then residential forms will change” Dr Weideman was speaking at Lincoln College where he has been a visiting research fellow. While in New Zealand he has also given a number of professional development seminars for the Real Estate Institute.

At the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, Dr Weideman is Director of the Land Economics and Real Estate Education Programme. He has conducted extensive research in real estate activities and has written a guidebook for first-time home buyers. In addition he has been education consultant to the Alberta Real Estate Association for almost 20 years and to the Edmonton Real Estate Board for a similar period.

Dr Weideman describes education as the key to excellence in any profession and he praised the New Zealand initiative of establishing a university chair in Real Estate Studies at Lincoln College backed by the institutes Of Real Estate, Valuers, and Property Management.