The Real Estate Economics and Appraisal Research Center

The Center’s objective is to create theoretical knowledge and applied information in all areas of the real estate economy and real estate projects appraisal. There is a large gap between academic research knowledge and the practice in the real estate industry and real estate appraisals. Industry professionals operate with a partial and sometimes vague understanding of economic processes and the future economic environment. The center aims to bridge this gap and meet the growing and changing needs of the real estate industry by established and relevant knowledge, with the aim of improving decision-making on spawning, development and investment in diverse real estate projects. 

The Center carries out its mission to promote real estate knowledge by developing and implementing economic theories using analytical tools and examining theories through databases, which the center develops and preserves. Research topics change from time to time depending on changes in the needs of the real estate industry, including the demand for real estate products and the technological and economic environment of real estate developers, contractors and regulators. 

The center's staff is conducting significant research on dynamic growth processes of cities, funded by the National Science Foundation. Another group of scholars at the Center deals with the development of a "Ruppin Index" the purpose of which is to identify land with development potential during the next decade. It is hoped that the index will point the geographic direction in the future development of cities. In addition, the Center is hosting the Israel workshop in regional science and urban economics. Once a month a group of scholars from all the universities in Israel meets for several hours and carry out discussions spawned by a new research presented by one of the members of the workshop. The scholars are joined by their PhD and MA students.

The center acts to: 

• set a research agenda, and to locate critical issues for improving understanding of real estate markets and making investments in the industry; 
• evaluate specific proposals for academic studies; 
• control the quality of studies carried out with the center and to publish their results; 
• create forums of academics and real estate professionals in order to encourage professional discussion of research; 
• distribute research outputs to the general public; and raise research money.

• Prof. Moshe Justman, emeritus professor of economics at Ben Gurion University;
• Prof. Stuart Gabries, head of the Ziman Center in Real Estate at UCLA;
• Prof. Danny Ben-Shahar, head of the Elrov Center for Real Estate Research at Tel Aviv University;
• Prof. Tsur Sommerville, professor of reals estate finance at the University of British Columbia​