Volume 21 (2013): Issue 2 (June 2013)

At the time of crisis, which involves state funded benefits as well as an increase in public debt, the members of the European Union are forced to consolidate their budgetary expenses. The social cost, however, is extremely high, as the general public is unwilling to accept it. Demographic experts predict a decrease in the amount of people at an economically productive age, not to mention the continuously growing life expectancy. This fact will have serious economic consequences in Poland. That is why the pension system reform was initiated. The inevitable cuts in spending on welfare benefits might cause a situation in which one of the possibilities of increasing retirement benefits leads to the use of the most valuable and long-lasting assets that can be found in households - real estate. A financial instrument called reverse mortgage enables the gradual liberalization of the value of real estate and, thereby, can be used as an additional source of retirement income.

In Poland, the lack of verification by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority and legislative regulations as far as contractors and consumers are concerned, may pose a potential risk. There are two main problems, namely, the legal status of companies that offer reverse mortgages (in the case of possible bankruptcy and debt vindication) as well as issues concerning cyclic value changes on real estate markets. Because of the lack of a reverse mortgage bill, there is no institution which can control the financial situation of contractors, thereby guaranteeing the safety of potential customers.

The goal of this article is to determine the prospects of the development of reverse mortgage in Poland from a cultural perspective in terms of potential client preferences by carrying out a survey among people aged 18 to 30 (mostly students from different cities) and senior citizens over the age of 60. The other aim is to assess the influence of cultural determinants on the perception of equity release products. The author poses a question: In what way does ownership and inheritance attitude influence the volume of reverse mortgage sales?

Social and economic phenomena that rely on "soft" factors to explain the market reality supply highly valuable observations. Behavioral elements should not be omitted in analyses of the real estate market because the latest developments in behavioral sciences significantly contribute to our understanding of this market.

The popularity of behavioral research in social and economic sciences provokes an examination of the significance of behavioral analyses on the real estate market. As an object of social and economic inquiry, the property market can benefit from recent achievements in behavioral sciences which expand the explanatory potential of studies based on the neoclassical model.

This paper analyzes calendar anomalies, generally referred to as calendar effects, on the real estate market. This phenomenon has been observed on the capital market and has been investigated and described by behavioral finance. The research hypothesis tested in this study is that calendar effects are present on the real estate market.

This paper aims to:

1) review calendar effects as model phenomena on the real estate market,

2) determine whether calendar effects occur on the real estate market and, if so, identify those anomalies,

3) determine whether and to what extent the real estate market is governed by seasonal diversity,

4) explain the significance of calendar effects to the real estate market. Research goals were pursued based on analyses of real estate transactions conducted in Olsztyn between 2004 and 2011.

The article aimed to present the dependencies between the transparency of the real estate market and the level of foreign investments realized on it. For developers on the real estate market, a key element, other than potential profits, may be the market’s transparency. The main feature of a transparent real estate market is easy access to credible data concerning supply and demand, rent, property prices, transactions, vacant houses and capitalization rates that could be the basis for analysis. Market transparency does not guarantee the success of an investment, but considerably influences investment decisions and the level of risk connected with them.

The presented case study is to provide various methods of determining the impact of the time trend on the changes in transaction prices of undeveloped land properties. The basis for each property valuation is an analysis of the local market, where the valued property is located. This analysis lies in the implementation of activities related to determining the trend of changes in the prices of real estate and their update on the valuation date, as well as in determining the impact of the various attributes of a property on the formation of a unit transaction price. The valuer making a valuation of a property is required to take into account the changes in price which occur as a result of the passage of time. The price adjustment is done properly if all the changes in price during a certain period of time are taken into consideration. In order to determine the trend of transaction prices, one can use:

- a method of comparing property prices by similar pairs,

- linear and nonlinear additive models,

- nonlinear multiplicative models (e.g., in the form of a multiplicative exponential function, power).

The choice of the right method of updating transaction prices depends on the sample size adopted for the analysis of the real estate market. It is also crucial to select the right representative real estate database that best reflects the tested reality.

A practical and theoretical research method of the time trend was developed using undeveloped land property price data. An analysis of determining the impact of time on real estate prices has been presented using each of the above mentioned mathematical models.

The object of the study was the local market of undeveloped land properties, including sale and purchase transactions conducted in Stoczek Łukowski. A merit analysis of the methods used and a comparison of the obtained results have also been provided.

Administrative proceedings regarding the approval of a draft property division are governed by the provisions of the Real Estate Management Act. On 22 September 2004, under the provisions of the Act of 28 November 2003 amending the Real Estate Management Act as well as some other acts (Journal of Laws No. 141, item. 1492), the text of the Real Estate Management Act was supplemented with article 98 b, which states that “the owners or perpetual users of the properties shaped in a way that hinders their rational development may submit a joint application on their merger and re-division into parcels of land, if they are entitled to uniform rights to those properties”.

This provision introduces detailed regulations regarding the necessary conditions for a merger and division: a commitment to carry out an exchange procedure in the form of a notarial deed, uniformity of the rights to the property, a conditional decision to approve the merger and division, and the need to convey the rights to the property within the date specified in the decision. Municipalities encourage this type of activity, that is conducting local mergers and divisions, because it does not engage them directly. The municipality does not finance these proceedings and there is no obligation to build the necessary technical infrastructure, as is the case in the event of a merger and division of a property. Problems with the implementation of merger and division procedures contained in the example analyzed in this article prompted the author to a deeper analysis of the regulations of article 98b of the Act on Real Estate Management, which revealed them to be insufficient. The legislature assumed that a property is created as a result of a merger, which will then be divided into plots of land. However, a merger implemented in such a way, at an intermediate stage, results in the emergence of a plot of land labeled as one record parcel, the individual parts of which belong to different entities and are disclosed in different land and mortgage registers. The plot is recorded both in the mortgage register and in the land registry. Based on the analysis of a specific case, practical problems were presented, regarding determining the content of the regulation and the decision issued during administrative proceedings, associated with the formulation of a notarial deed of the obligation to carry out the exchange procedure and the exchange itself as well as the disclosure of the merger and division in land and mortgage registers. Sources of the problems were identified and supplementation of insufficient legal regulations was proposed.

Trading in agricultural land in the Zachodniopomorskie Voivodeship (a high-level administrative subdivision of Poland) is strictly connected with the local activity of the ANR (Agencja Nieruchomości Rolnych - Agricultural Market Agency), which is the effect of historical problems concerning the ownership of arable land left over from the communist era. In effect, the Polish State Treasury is still in charge of managing state-owned farmland and, therefore, plays an important role in shaping local agricultural land markets. The study includes all the sale transactions concluded by the Szczecin division of the ANR in the Zachodniopomorskie gminas.

The subjects of the study are lands described by quantitative variables, such as: property size, location, date of sale and sale price. The purpose of the study was to define the structure of agricultural land sold by the ANR. The authors verified their research hypothesis concerning the stability of land structure over time of the agricultural land being sold.

The paper presents the attributes of good public residential space within cities. Features of public residential space significant for city inhabitants at the place of residence were defined. Valuation of the desired qualities of public residential space at the place of residence and valuation of the existing qualities of public residential space at the current place of residence were determined according to surveys conducted among 1,500 inhabitants in 6 cities. The level of maladjustment of qualities of public residential space and the expectations of inhabitants were defined according to the obtained indicators.

The main aim of the study was to analyse the possibilities of increasing the market value of a property through various activities. Such activities referred to in the literature as “value based management” and are commonly applied in enterprise management. In the case of properties, this system is based on the appropriate identification of factors making up the value of the property. These factors can be divided into two groups, i.e., objective factors, independent of activities undertaken by the owner or the manager of the property, and subjective factors resulting from a consciously implemented policy. Since only the second group of activities depends on the property manager, it is possible to introduce “value based management” with regard to the manager’s activities. This article presents a case study implemented on a part of hospital property. The analysis proved that the method used can also be applied to undeveloped parts of the property and that the market value of the property in individual investigated scenarios reaches 100%.

The paper proposes the use of geographic information system tools for the analysis of spatial and temporal aspects of the real estate market. In particular, it focuses on the graphical presentation of the spatial distribution of price and its variability over time. The possibility of presenting an image of the spatial distribution of prices in the form of a 3D model is studied. A topographic surface is proposed as an alternative to traditional methods of spatial interpolation. Visual verification and numerical comparison have shown its superiority over other previously used methods.

The best method of presenting four-dimensional data - the variation in time of the spatial distribution of house prices - was sought. The possibility of taking time into account as one of the attributes of the analyzed and presented objects, available in advanced GIS software, was used for this purpose. The undertaken activities were based on formal guidelines for the registration of time set out in the ISO 19100 series of standards dedicated to geographic information.

Potential sources of data for this kind of analysis were identified and their availability was examined. The paper also presents how to build a spatial database on the basis of the available information, which is a starting material for further analysis.

The carried out research demonstrated the benefits of the spatial approach to trends of changes in real estate prices, which can be used, among others, for mass appraisal.

Land management is aimed at generating optimal social, economic and environmental benefits while promoting sustainable development principles. An essential element of this process is the knowledge of the geospatial situation to support public decision-making at different levels: local, regional, national and global. Hence, there is a need for rapid access to complete and updated information about the physical characteristics of a property, rights, restrictions, responsibilities and interrelations. This information is provided by land administration systems (LAS). LAS are built and maintained by governments. The core of LAS is a multi-purpose cadastral system integrated with other spatial information systems and public registers.

In this paper, the authors present the functional architecture and the assumptions of land administration systems built in Poland and Germany. The analysis results show the specificity of the systems' design in relation to socio-economic conditions.