The development of corporate real estate asset management in New Zealand

Abstract

The first substantial research into the practice of Corporate Real Estate Asset Management (CREAM) in New Zealand was carried out by Wei Kium Teoh in 1992. Subsequently the author has published a number of papers in this area and a variety of post graduate students at Lincoln University have also undertaken research into CREAM via their dissertations. Several of these research projects involved surveys of large organizations in New Zealand and included similar questions. They were also spread in time over a period of 14 years. This led to the opportunity to carry out a time series analysis of the development of CREAM practice in New Zealand, the results of which are described in this paper. Findings include substantial and continuous improvement in some aspects of CREAM practice, such as the qualifications of those responsible for the management of corporate real estate and the development of strategic plans for these assets. However other findings have remained remarkably stable or plateaued, for example the percentage of organizations with a separate real estate unit, reporting levels to management and the allocation of real estate costs.