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Safety and security operations at Appalachian State's Belk Library & Information Commons have evolved and improved over the past 15 years with a focused access services oriented team. Improvements have focused on the challenges posed in four primary areas: understanding the customer base and the challenges posed therein; improving the skills and expanding the pool of library personnel capable of handling security incidents; allowing effective outside security operations and personnel to improve over time; and acting on multiple access issues. The authors of this case study provide insight and recommendations on the challenges faced and actions taken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note outlines the estimation methodology of the degree of over- or under-pricing for a given housing market relative to its long-term pricing trend. The purpose of this effort is to provide buyers, sellers, real estate professionals, and policy makers a tool that estimates the premium (over-pricing) or discount (under-pricing) a local market is experiencing at a given moment. In general, this model is designed more for greater public rather than academic consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether and to what extent the Beracha, Hardin, and Johnson Buy vs. Rent Index (BH&J Index) is able to anticipate future housing price movements. The BH&J Index is based on a model introduced by Beracha and Johnson (2012) in which a low index value is associated with a buy recommendation and a high index value is associated with a rent recommendation. The results of our analysis reveal a negative relation between the BH&J Index value and future housing price changes at the metropolitan level, which is consistent with the buy or rent recommendation of the index. The negative relation between the BH&J Index value and future housing price changes is statistically significant, economically meaningful, and is particularly relevant for medium-term holding periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it is well documented that homeowners have greater total wealth than renters, it is not clear that homeownership causes this wealth differential. We consider the buy versus rent decision in the framework of household portfolio choice. This allows us to determine whether owning a home increases the utility of households by improving the performance of their portfolio compared with households that rent. We determine that while renting is superior to ownership in isolation, homeownership as a part of the household portfolio often improves wealth creation on a risk-adjusted basis. Our findings suggest significant policy changes that currently favor levered homeownership strategies for households with minimal wealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well accepted that homeowners, on average, have greater total wealth than renters. However, Beracha and Johnson (2012) show that in a strict "horserace" comparison, renting creates higher wealth than ownership in the majority of cases. In this paper, we revisit Beracha and Johnson's buy versus rent model to investigate factors affecting the wealth outcomes of the buy versus rent decision. Three key findings emerge: (1) the difference in wealth between renting and owning can be most affected by choices within the scope of the individual rather than through the impact of exogenous market variables; (2) households that fail to reinvest buy-rent cash flow differentials accumulate less wealth; and (3) property appreciation plays only a minor role in the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 24-hour/5-days-per-week (24/5) model at Belk Library & Information Commons has experienced multiple changes since first implemented in 2006. First the library started small, then expanded, then reduced, and finally expanded again. This article tells the story of a library's 24/5 evolution within the assessment cycle framework, describes how data and perspective played a role in decisions, provides data on overnight head counts, offers a glimpse into the types of activities engaged in by students during overnight hours, describes student led advocacy efforts to reinstate library hours, and provides an overview of operations and security officer protocol. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The property price–marketing duration relationship is an important component of many real estate studies. However, contrary to theories, and widely-held notions of many researchers, the relationship is not as straightforward as generally assumed. In this paper, we summarize the literature and model price and marketing time to highlight the nature of the property price–marketing time tradeoff. As defined in this work, "simultaneous modeling" includes studies in which marketing time appears as a control in pricing models, as well as studies in which property price is used as a control in time-on-market models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]