Real Estate Conference

Today we left the hotel sharp at 8:45am to visit the Warsaw School of Economics.

The first speaker at the conference was Deputy Rector Prof. Marek Bryx, who was talking about the redevelopment of the SGH campus and the history of the campus. 

Followed by Keith Lown from Nottingham Trent University speaking about the redevelopment of the Newton and the Arkwright building, the history of the NTU campus, as well as the current headline project: The Byron Building, which is designed to achieve a BREEAM excellent rating and provides new space for the students union and student accommodation + sport and social facilities. 

Brian Burgess FRICS is the Managing Director of Savills. He introduced how buildings become a ‘Green’ certificate, as well as how the office market is zoned and how it has performed last year (stock, space under construction and vacancy rates).  

In the second part of his presentation Brian divided the class into groups with mixed students from SGH and NTU. We had to do some exercises, where we had to work out the capitalisation value, as well as working through two investment strategies and making a decision in which option was better:

Option 1:

1. Invest 5€ million in green ‘in-use’ certification, or

2. Convert part common space and part parking to offices

o   New offices 2,000sqm

o   Cost 5€ million

o   Loss of 1,000sqm common space

o   Loss of 40 car park spaces

Very important to remember is to include the add-on factor for the common areas, which is the percentage of the space occupied in the building.

However, Christopher Grzesik was talking about the politics of valuation worldwide and how it is affected, as well as the need for the valuation standards, eg. International Valuation Standards (IVS), European Valuation Standards (TEGoVA), RICS Valuation Standards and USPAP Appraisal Foundation.

In 2008 a scheme was introduced to designate valuer in Europe known as ‘Recognised European Valuer’, which has adopted by Valuers Associations in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, United Kingdom (IRRV), Poland, Romania, Russia and Spain.

This needs to be renewed every 5 years and can be approached by the following routes:

1) University degree or post graduate diploma in valuation of relevant degree

a.    2 years of professional experience in property valuation; and

b.    min. 20 valuations in last two years

2) University degree or post graduate diploma or professional qualification, relevant to real estate (but not covering all required subjects)

a.    5 years of professional experience in the property business, 3 of which to include to property valuation; and

b.    min. 20 valuations in the last two years

3) No university degree

a.    10 years professional experience in the property business, 3 of which to include to property valuation; and

b.    min. 20 valuations in last two years

The last speaker was Ewelina Studzinska from a urban design and home refurbishment firm for pre-war apartments, the Fenix Group.