Since the financial crisis of 2008, National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) have worked to develop commercial real estate (CRE) indicators for official statistics. These indicators are considered essential in financial stability monitoring and may help contain the consequences of future crises or even prevent future crises. However, progress at NSIs to develop these indicators has been slow due to challenges like low observation numbers and high heterogeneity. This dissertation addresses these challenges by exploring data issues and suggesting methodological improvements.

The first three studies focus on data challenges regarding share deals and portfolio sales. Both are real estate trading constructions that are specific to CRE. The results show that share deals and portfolio sales significantly differ from the rest of the market. Therefore, under specific circumstances, CRE indicators could benefit from including these trading types. The final two studies focus on methodological challenges regarding index construction methods and the role of sustainability in real estate pricing. The results show that, by combining established techniques, it is possible to construct price indices that meet official statistics’ standards. Furthermore, the results uncover a complex relationship between sustainability and prices: while energy efficiency generally involves price premiums, others aspects like health and environment display a discount for low sustainable properties.

Overall, this dissertation contributes to the legislative framework that is currently being developed for EU countries to publish official statistics for commercial real estate and adds to the academic discussion by presenting innovative techniques for data analyses and index construction.@en

In last decades, there is a trend to renew buildings and make them more sustainable. Studies have shown that energy measures (as an aspect of sustainability) often increase the value of real estate. The effect of other sustainability measures on real estate values, however, is unknown. This study examines the relationship between multiple sustainability aspects and the transaction prices of different types of real estate. For this study, we used official data on commercial real estate transactions from the Land Registry Office in the Netherlands and sustainability assessment scores from a Dutch sustainability consultant. In total, 10,652 real estate transaction prices between 2012 and 2023 and corresponding sustainability scores were used to perform regressions and hedonic imputation analyses. The results show that, opposed to energy, other aspects of sustainability often correlate negatively with transaction prices in the lower segment of sustainable real estate. These aspects correlate positively in the upper segment of sustainable real estate.@en

Constructing price indices for commercial real estate (CPPIs) is challenging due to heterogeneous and limited observations. Common price index methods often result in volatile index series. Attempts to reduce volatility often lead to frequent revisions of the entire index series and a loss of methodological index properties. When it comes to CPPIs in official statistics, both volatility and frequent revisions are undesirable. Revisions could compromise the confidence of users if indicators are allowed to change indefinitely, while instable indices insufficiently reflect structural underlying developments. In this study, a combination of hedonic imputation, multilateral calculations, time series analysis, and window splicing is introduced. The result is a method that produces stable and limited-revisable indices with the ability to detect turning points in an early stage. Commercial real estate transactions in the Netherlands are used to empirically test the method. The resulting CPPIs appear suitable for monitoring financial stability and, therefore, seem appropriate for the use in official statistics.@en

Purpose
This study examines the relationship between environmental building certification Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM-NL) and office rents in the Dutch office market.

Design/methodology/approach
A hedonic price model was used to assess the impact of BREEAM certification on office rents. The study is based on 4,355 rent transactions in the period 2015 to mid-2022, in which 331 transactions took place in certified office buildings and 4,024 transactions in non-certified office buildings.

Findings
The results provide empirical evidence on quantitative economic benefits of BREEAM-certified offices in the Netherlands. After controlling for all important office rent determinants, the results show a rental premium for certified office buildings of 10.3% on average. The green premiums highly differ across submarkets and vary between 5.1 and 12.6% in the five largest Dutch cities. Additionally, the results show significant positive correlation between BREEAM-NL label score and rents, whereby better performing buildings generally command higher rents.

Originality/value
The study contributes to the current literature on green building economics by providing, as one of the first, empirical evidence on the existence of financial benefits for BREEAM-certified office buildings in the Dutch office market.@en

Purpose: Commercial real estate (CRE) indicators typically include asset deals and exclude share deals. This study aims to explore the phenomenon of real estate share deals and assess whether omitting these transactions results in indicators that do not accurately reflect the market. Design/methodology/approach: Various registers in the Netherlands were used to estimate transaction volumes, total values and price developments of both share and asset deals. Share deals are company transfers and its transactions cover more than real estate. To estimate the contribution of real estate in share deals, valuations were used. Findings: In the Netherlands, share deals are most prominent for rental dwellings. Adding share deals to volume and value indicators seems required. In price development estimates, significant differences were found for dwellings between share and asset deals. Price indices should, therefore, also include share deals, but in practice this is difficult and has little impact on the outcomes due to the low weight of share deals. Research limitations/implications: Legislation has a major impact on choosing a share or asset deal. The significance of share deals is expected to vary amongst countries. Performing similar research in other countries will contribute in harmonising real estate indicators. Practical implications: Statistical agencies face many challenges in the construction of CRE indicators. This study provides statisticians knowledge that can be used to evaluate possible data gaps. Originality/value: This is the first study to estimate indicators of real estate share deals and compare these to asset deal indicators.

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