ABSTRACT
PurposeThe London office market is a major destination of international real estate capital and arguably the epicentre of international real estate investment over the past decade. However, the increase in global uncertainties in recent years due to socio-economic and political trends highlights the need for more insights into the behaviour of international real estate capital flows. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the influence of the global and domestic environment on international real estate investment activities within the London office market over the period 2007–2017.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts an auto-regressive distributed lag approach using the real capital analytics (RCA) international real estate investment data. The RCA data analyses quarterly cross-border investment transactions within the central London office market for the period 2007–2017.FindingsThe study provides insights on the critical differences in the influence of the domestic and global environment on cross-border investment activities in this office market, specifically highlighting the significance of the influence of the global environment in the long run. In the short run, the influence of factors reflective of both the domestic and international environment are important indicating that international capital flows into the London office market is contextualised by the interaction of different factors.Originality/valueThe authors provide a holistic study of the influence of both the domestic and international environment on cross-border investment activities in the London office market, providing more insights on the behaviour of global real estate capital flows.
ABSTRACT
Purpose>The study was designed to investigate the bidirectional causation between the real estate market characteristics (residential property prices/rents (including PTR), office rents) and the rise of coworking spaces (CSs) in the peripheral areas of Germany.Design/methodology/approach>Based on the desk research, the authors constructed their own database of 1,201 CSs. The authors gathered data on the residential and office prices and rents on a district level. To identify real market differences between districts with and without CSs, the authors applied the t-test for independent samples.Findings>The second-highest number of CSs were found to operate in the office market peripheries. This phenomenon should be explained by a search for lower office rents, which CSs seek. Most CSs in the peripheral areas of Germany were only recently established in tourist-oriented regions in the south and north of Germany. In this paper, the authors confirmed that the strength of peripheral CSs lies in the hybridity of their operations: for the majority of CSs, running a CS is a non-core business. The authors argue that the role of CSs is rather limited in attracting real estate investors and boosting the real estate market in the peripheral areas of Germany.Practical implications>The research shows that peripheral locations are attracting CSs to significant extent. The study shows that CSs can be part of corporate real estate or workplace strategies. As the majority of peripheral CSs are located in tourism areas, the subletting of vacant spaces could be a lucrative business model for hotels, particularly in the times of pandemics. Therefore, further research should focus on the role of tourist areas in the implementation of CSs model.Originality/value>The focus of this study (CSs in peripheral areas) is original. Additionally, applying the real estate perspective to study the location of CSs is novel as well.
ABSTRACT
This data article describes a panel dataset that combines flexible office space market data with entrepreneurial data, such as founding and funding of ventures in 47 European cities. One adaption of new ways of working are coworking spaces. They are shared working environments that offer office space and intangible resources, such as knowledge sharing, collaboration and networking. Access to flexible office space for self-employed, start-ups, and corporates is a key resource for businesses. Covid-19 has shown that space provision is becoming more flexible and ventures increasingly use scalable space instead of long-term lease agreements for office space or than owning it. Deskmag counts 18,700 coworking spaces worldwide in the year of 2018 with 1.65 million coworkers and high future growth expectations after COVID-19 [1]. Data were collected through two sources. Data about coworking spaces were collected through a web scraper crawling for coworking spaces within a city as of December 31, 2018. Those data were manually enriched by real estate and economic variables, such as the office high prime rent and office market size. Data about the funding and founding of ventures were obtained through using the database Crunchbase, including all start-ups in a city with their type of funding (including: seed, venture capital, private equity, debt convertibles and others) and their financing rounds. The Crunchbase database lists mostly young firms, commonly called start-ups and small medium enterprises (SME), and their financing with external funding. It includes firms that have needed or might need funding in the near future, or have already got funding. Hence, it is possible to relate spatial clusters with entrepreneurial activity and analyze for example the influence of (flexible) office markets on founding activity. This dataset enables researchers and practitioners to further explore important questions regarding the nexus between the real estate industry, entrepreneurship behavior, start-ups and regional clusters. Due to the scarcity of publicly available quality flexible office space market data, the dataset detailed in this article may play a relevant role to be ready to be used by researchers and practitioners. Funding data can be used for regional analysis, growth development, or any other economic issues.