Search

European directives on sustainable finance identify binding guidelines in investment planning for the decarbonization of the real estate sector. The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation regularizes the methods of economic evaluation of projects by identifying the pillars Environmental (E), Social (S) and Governance (G) as thematic reference stylistic features. The ESG triptych constitutes inspiration in the scientific literature in the field for the proposal and testing of valuation algorithms aimed at the optimal structuring of investment portfolios. The paper proposes an ESG-based economic-financial analysis model for energy retrofit programs referring to the existing real estate sector. The model assumes the configuration of a multi-objective system built by borrowing algebraic formalisms of Operations Research, especially those of optimization algorithms. These algorithms make it possible to construct logical-functional relationships such as to represent the anatomy of the proposed evaluation model in terms of objective function and constraints, for example on the European decarbonization pathway target, or even on the available budget. The implementation of the proposed model, applied to a case study, returns a time priority list of assets to be energy efficient, balancing for each the investment costs, payback period and post-retrofit CO2 production.

The use of the public State-owned lands for privately managed bathing establishments involves the payment of a properly agreed concession fee and the definition of its duration. On these aspects, Italy appears not to be in line with the current European legislation and therefore an update of the current legal provisions presupposes an investigation to identify the existence and the extent of the imbalances between the paid fee and the real revenues of the bathing activities. Starting from an overview of the international and national regulations on the topic of the bathing concessions, the research intends to provide an empirical analysis of existing gaps between the annual concession fee currently paid by the private operator and the annual revenues deriving from the bathing activity of each facility, for supporting the public administrations in determining the fair bathing concession fee to be paid to the State domain. With reference to a sample of bathing establishment located in the Apulia region (southern Italy) randomly selected through a web survey, the first results are provided and discussed.

With the financialization of the real estate market, the application of the income approach through the Discounted Cash Flow Analysis (DCFA) for estimating the market value has significantly increased. In this income approach method, the Discount Rate (DR) is one of the factors that decisively affects the result. Despite the several procedures proposed for the estimation of the DR and the numerous parameters considered, the valuer is generally «forced» to the use of the risk premium as a corrective that takes into account the “communis aestimatio” borrowed for the assessment of the DR. Starting from these premises, the present research attempts to replicate the ordinary behavior that leads the valuer to the determination of DR and to outline a methodology that allows estimating a reliable and objective value of DR on the bases of the factors generally taken into consideration.

Urban development is increasingly scrutinized for its sustainability from an economic, social, and environmental viewpoint. This study emphasizes how important indicators are in capturing the complexity of urban settings when assessing urban landscapes and making sure that comprehensive development plans incorporate all these aspects. The work aim is to forward the investigation of the ontology of indicators related to urban sustainability, specifically, a framework for spatial and temporal analysis and an attempt to align terminology with the sustainability indicators of the ISO spectrum. The methodology encompasses three main phases: a systematic review of sustainability indicators from the scientific literature across various territorial scales; the mapping of individual indicators to their appropriate spatial–temporal measurement ranges; and the alignment of these spatially and temporally specific indicators with ISO standards. Focusing on the Italian context, this study establishes an ontological spatial–temporal framework. It analyzes ISO indicators that can be managed in Italian spatial settings. The main objective of this part of the research is to select through a critical analysis the most frequent indicators in order to be able to make an alignment and define those that aim more at the goals of the 2030 Agenda on sustainability. This innovative approach enhances urban issue awareness and supports informed decision-making by demonstrating how sustainability indicators can be effectively utilized in downscaling strategies to create a policy for the practical use of indicators.

The present research aims at identifying any changes in the market appreciations of the residential segment in Italy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. With reference to the first half of 2023 (phase III, “post-COVID-19”), in the paper, a logical–operational methodology is implemented: a sample of properties sold in the two-month period January–February 2023 is collected and an econometric analysis is applied for determining (i) the most influential factors on selling prices and (ii) the functional links between prices and each selected explanatory variable. Furthermore, the findings obtained are compared with those related to the phases I, “ante-COVID-19”, and II, “COVID-19 in itinere” (by recalling a previous study of the same authors), to highlight the variations between the periods and provide useful guidelines for the design of domestic spaces in different Italian geographical contexts. In addition, this work conducts a comparison of the outputs derived from the econometric analysis starting from the real estate data collected on the reference markets (revealed preferences) with the results of a direct survey carried out on a sample of individuals through the administration of an ad hoc developed questionnaire and aimed at investigating the opinions of potential buyers of residential properties (stated preferences). The use of the “twin” approach (an analysis of perceptions via the direct survey integrated by the implementation of an econometric technique) allows us to verify the consistence of the real dynamics of market (expressed by the interviewees) with the mathematical model results for investigating the house-scale effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in the considered cities.

The concession for the use of real estate intended to provide public services is the tool often used by the public administration to obtain, with the recourse to private investment, the valorisation of the asset and a more efficient management of the service. A typical case is that of football stadiums, the management of which is normally entrusted in concession to companies that assume the burden of guaranteeing the safety and functionality of the facility to provide a satisfactory experience for the spectator. When the management of the asset entails profit margins for the concessionary company, the public service concession must provide for the payment of a fee as consideration for the use of the asset. This work deals with the issue of estimating the concession fee for football stadiums granted to clubs with teams playing in professional leagues. The issue is addressed through the implementation of a direct probabilistic and multi-parametric approach, which attempts to overcome the limitations of the procedures normally used in these cases, based on cost value or income analysis, resulting from the subjective nature that often characterises the choice of fundamental parameters. Specifically, a multiple regression analysis is developed on the basis of information and data from the examination of existing concession contracts for similar properties. The results show that the variance of the fees is explained by the level of the football league in which the concessionaire’s team plays, the capacity of the stadium, the year of construction of the stadium, and the year of the last major renovation on the building structure. La concessione in uso di immobili destinati a fornire servizi pubblici è lo strumento spesso utilizzato dall’Amministrazione pubblica proprietaria per ottenere, con il ricorso ad investimenti privati, la valorizzazione del bene ed una più efficiente gestione del servizio. Caso tipico è quello degli stadi di calcio, la cui gestione è normalmente affidata in concessione alle società̀ che assumono l’onere di garantire la sicurezza e la funzionalità dell’impianto, allo scopo di fornire un’esperienza soddisfacente allo spettatore. Allorché la gestione del bene comporti margini di profitto per la società concessionaria, la concessione del servizio pubblico, deve prevedere il pagamento al concedente di un canone quale corrispettivo per l’utilizzo del bene. Questo lavoro affronta il tema della stima del canone di concessione di stadi di calcio affidati a società con squadre che militano in campionati professionistici. La questione estimativa è affrontata mediante l’implementazione di un approccio diretto probabilistico e pluriparametrico, che tenta di superare i limiti dei procedimenti normalmente utilizzati in questi casi, basati sul valore di costo o su un’analisi reddituale, derivanti dal carattere soggettivo che spesso connota la scelta di parametri fondamentali. Nello specifico, è sviluppata un’analisi di regressione multipla sulla base di informazioni e dati ricavati dall’esame di contratti di concessione già in atto per strutture similari. I risultati mostrano che la varianza dei canoni è spiegata dal livello della Lega calcistica in cui milita la squadra della società concessionaria, dalla capienza dello stadio, dall’anno di costruzione dello stadio, e dall’anno dell’ultima rilevante ristrutturazione sulla struttura edilizia.

The benefits generated by the urban transformation interventions can often favour the private property owners or developers by increasing their gains (effective or potential) and therefore reducing the acquirable resources for the public city’s construction. However, due to the requirements of achieving the sustainable development targets established by the 2030 Agenda the process of the construction of the public city should appropriately address the implementation of value recapture’s principles in the assessment of the benefits generated by complex urban transformation interventions. For these reasons, tools like the Extraordinary Urbanization Contribution (EUC) – established in 2014 with the art.16, co.4 of the Italian Presidential Decree no.380/2001 – have recently gained renewed importance. Aim of the work is to provide a decision support model for the assessment of the plusvalue generated by complex urban variant intervention, in order to detect the effects that the discount rate used for representing the time and the risk in the application of the Discounted Cash Flow Analysis (DCFA) for determining the transformation value, can have on the feasibility of the intervention and, consequently, on the public and private benefits. The implementation of a rational procedure based on the application of the mathematical optimization’s principles to a case study in the city of Bari (Italy), allows to highlight how the discount rate may significantly change the urban parameters from which the feasibility of the urban variant depends and the fair share of the public and private benefits. I benefici generati dagli interventi di trasformazione urbana possono spesso favorire i proprietari di immobili privati o gli imprenditori aumentandone i guadagni (effettivi o potenziali) e quindi riducendo le risorse acqui- sibili per la costruzione della città pubblica. Tuttavia, a causa delle esigenze di raggiungimento degli obiettivi di sviluppo sostenibile stabiliti dall’Agenda 2030, il processo di costruzione della città pubblica dovrebbe affrontare adeguatamente l’attuazione dei principi di “value recapture” nella valutazione dei benefici generati da interventi di trasformazione urbana complessi. Per questi motivi, strumenti come il Contributo Straordinario di Urbanizzazione (EUC) – istituito nel 2014 con l’art.16, co.4 del DPR n.380/2001 – hanno recentemente acquisito una rinnovata importanza. L’obiettivo del lavoro consiste nel fornire un modello di supporto alle decisioni per la valutazione del plusvalore generato da un intervento complesso di variante urbanistica, al fine di analizzare gli effetti che il tasso di attualizzazione – utilizzato per rappresentare il tempo e il rischio nell’applicazione della Discounted Cash Flow Analysis (DCFA) –, può avere sulla fattibilità dell’intervento e, di conseguenza, sui benefici pubblici e privati. L’implementa- zione di una procedura razionale basata sull’applica- zione dei principi dell’ottimizzazione matematica ad un caso studio nella città di Bari (Italia), consente di evidenziare come il tasso di attualizzazione possa modificare significativamente i parametri urbanistici da cui dipende la fattibilità della variante urbanistica e la corretta ripartizione dei benefici pubblici e privati.

Abstract With reference to the growing need of recovery and functional reconversion of abandoned industrial sites located in urban areas, the present research intends to highlight the significance of using valid evaluation models for supporting the public subjects and private investors’ choices processes. In particular, in the paper a model to assess the financial conveniences of the parties involved in the redevelopment of disused industrial sites, has been developed. The model borrows the logical approach of the Break-Even Analysis (BEA), by introducing hypothesis more relevant to the real market mechanisms and assuming the nonlinear trend of the financial parameters. The inclusion of the scale economies mechanisms in the definition of the algorithm constitutes the innovation of the operative logic of the model, able to appropriately reproduce the empirical market phenomena, compared to the classic application of the BEA with constant parameters. The proposed model represents an effective tool to be used in the early stages of interventions planning, for orienting the urban policy decisions towards more performing projects profitable interventions, in line with the current goals of sustainable development of the territories. Con riferimento alla crescente esigenza di recupero e riconversione funzionale dei siti industriali dismessi ubicati in aree urbane, la presente ricerca intende evidenziare la valenza dell’impiego di efficaci modelli valutativi a supporto dei processi decisionali dei soggetti pubblici e degli investitori privati. In particolare, nel lavoro è stato sviluppato un modello per valutare le convenienze finanziarie delle parti coinvolte nelle iniziative di valorizzazione dei siti industriali dismessi. Il modello mutua l’approccio logico della Break-Even Analysis (BEA), introducendo ipotesi maggiormente attinenti ai reali meccanismi di mercato e contemperando l’andamento di tipo non lineare dei parametri finanziari. L’inclusione dei meccanismi di economie di scala nella definizione dell’algoritmo di implementazione costituisce l’innovatività della logica operativa del modello, in grado di replicare opportunamente i fenomeni empirici di mercato, rispetto alla classica applicazione della BEA con parametri costanti. Il modello proposto rappresenta un valido strumento da utilizzare nelle fasi iniziali di pianificazione degli interventi, per orientare le decisioni di politica urbana verso progetti maggiormente performanti, in linea con gli attuali obiettivi di sviluppo sostenibile dei territori.

In a global context, the identification of frameworks and assessment tools for achieving sustainable development requires the study of urban sustainability at different scales. While sustainability can be quantified more precisely on a larger scale, it is challenging to adapt these accounting techniques to smaller sites. Measuring becomes more challenging when researching urban sustainability from several viewpoints, especially when constructing an acceptable set of measurements while taking into account the several issues of the unique decision-making apparatus from theoretical and geographical perspectives. Which sorts of indicators should be prioritized above others? How many indicators should be used? Which criteria should be employed to choose the best indicators for the location of interest? This study addresses the aforementioned research problems by proposing a systematic, multidirectional approach to defining an adequate collection of indicators for sustainability accounting in urban situations. A top-down strategy, which provides a literature study to identify regularly used indicators in essential sustainability categories, is joined by a bottom-up approach, which creates indicators based on real-world circumstances. The combination of these two methodologies seeks to produce a set of relevant sustainability measurements. A neighborhood rehabilitation project for public housing in Le Lignon (Switzerland) serves as a pilot case for calibrating the proposed multidirectional technique. The final findings can support the public and private parties involved in sustainable urban planning procedures in assessing urban projects based on location-specific features.

The historic designation of individual properties and entire neighborhoods has experienced an evolution in its meaning in recent decades. The original passive approach to managing historical buildings, which primarily regarded them as “values” to be defended and preserved for future generations, has been supplemented by strategies aimed at their valorization, derived from an awareness of the potential of such resources for the community, as a means of promoting the economic and social conditions of local populations. This paper proposes a review of all the main research carried out in the literature over the last thirty years concerning the impact of the historical–architectural significance of property values, both from an intrinsic point of view by evaluating the weight that the examined variable assumes in relation to the market value of the individual property and an extrinsic point of view by addressing the issue of the evaluation of “spatial spillovers”, positive and/or negative externalities that neighborhoods with historical–architectural significance—understood as historical districts—produce on the values of the properties falling within them. The analysis conducted shows that, according to the studies carried out, historic-architectural value can have both a positive and negative impact on property values. This output is related to the type of historic designation (local rather than national), the architectural style, the building typology, and the conservation and enhancement activities envisaged for the property.

With reference to the current focus on urban redevelopment issue, the evaluation of the projects plays a central role for the definition of effective urban development policies. In the present research, a logical-deductive model for the identification of “warning areas” is proposed. Given an urban area to be renovated, the developed methodological approach starts from the detection of the main existing architectural, historical and environmental emergencies in order to investigate the appreciation of the reference market for the higher or lower proximity to each considered urban pole. Thus, an econometric technique is implemented to examine the influence of each locational factor on selling prices, by assuming the property asset price increase as a proxy of the benefits generated by the urban redevelopment intervention for local communities. Furthermore, the proposed methodology is applied to the Esquilino district in the city of Rome (Italy), for which a relevant urge of urban regeneration is found, to orient the selection phases of the areas that need more attention from public entities.

IntroductionThe industrial activity constitutes one of the most driving sectors of a nation, as it is often considered at the center of public debate as the fulcrum of development policies. However, considering the climate impacts generated, many industries have necessarily changed, relocated, and/or interrupted their production. Due to the connection of industrial sites with the socio-economic, environmental, and health systems of cities, the real estate market dynamics can be differently affected by the presence of polluting industrial sites. With reference to the Italian context, the goal of the research is to, firstly, verify whether there is a functional relationship between the presence of polluting industrial sites and the residential real estate market dynamics, for then determining its type and the extent of purchase price affection.MethodThe proposed logical-evaluative model is based on the application of an econometric technique for investigating the significance of the industrial sites on the residential real estate dynamics through a set of technological, locational, and health variables.ResultsThe obtained results show that the total surface area of the polluting sites, the activity level and the industrial plant opening date are among the most relevant variables, instead the accessibility to the industrial site does not influence the real estate market dynamics.Discussion and practical implicationsThe main practical implication of the present research consists of the possibility to provide a support for the activation of strategies aimed at adopting sustainable development models in the industrial sector.

The location of a university campus can generate a virtuous circle of economic effects on the territory, often not limited to the nearby neighborhoods. A frequent phenomenon associated with the construction of a University and which is widely studied in the scientific reference literature, is represented by studentification, namely, the process through which specific residential neighborhoods become dominated by student occupation. Even if studentification often produces beneficial effects on the dynamics of the local real estate market, it may happen that, when the starting point already has consolidated dynamics, the replacement of residents in neighborhoods close to the University with the new social class of students, can determine negative impacts in terms of urban segregation and reduction of real estate values. This research analyzes the effects of studentification on the real estate market when the University is located within a city already equipped with services for residents. The analysis is carried out on the city of Potenza (Southern Italy), by comparing the outputs obtained from a survey with those generated by the implementation of a Geographically Weighted Regression. The results highlight the importance to appropriately assess the economic spillovers that can be determined by new infrastructure investments on the urban territories. L’ubicazione di un campus universitario può generare un circolo virtuoso di effetti economici sul territorio, spesso non limitato ai quartieri vicini. Un fenomeno frequente legato alla costruzione di un Ateneo e ampiamente studiato nella letteratura scientifica di riferimento, è rappresentato dalla studentizzazione, ovvero il processo attraverso il quale determinati quartieri residenziali vengono dominati dall’occupazione studentesca. Anche se la studentizzazione produce spesso effetti benefici sulle dina-miche del mercato immobiliare locale, può accadere che, quando il punto di partenza ha già consolidate dinamiche, la sostituzione di residenti in quartieri vicini all’Ateneo con la nuova classe sociale di studenti, possa determinare impatti negativi in termini di segregazione urbana e riduzione dei valori immobiliari. Questa ricerca analizza gli effetti della studentizzazione sul mercato immobiliare quando l’Ateneo si trova all’interno di una città già dotata di servizi per i residenti. L’analisi è condotta sulla città di Potenza (Italia Meridionale), confrontando i risultati ottenuti da un sondaggio con quelli generati dall’implementazione di una Geographically Weighted Regression. Da essi emerge l’importanza di valutare adeguatamente le ricadute economiche che possono essere determinate da investimenti infrastrutturali in aree urbane.

The economic crisis generated by the current Covid-19 has scratched many of the certainties consolidated in the past, highlighting the fragility of the economic system and the need for a more efficient management of the investments. Extreme events, whether environmental, social, health and economic, trigger off shocks to which it is necessary to promptly react. Starting from these premises, many institutional investors are directing their capitals towards environmental interventions. In the real estate field this translates into promoting initiatives to improve the efficiency of the existing building heritage, in line with the concept of Circular Economy, and avoiding soil sealing. In the present research a composite indicator that allows to analyze the performance of different real estate investments (e.g. new construction, demolition and reconstruction, renovation, etc.) has been proposed. The performance is assessed with respect to the expected profitability, the specific characteristics of the market in which the initiatives are located and the different risk-return profiles that characterize the investors. The case study, relating to two different investments located in Rome (Italy), has allowed to test the effectiveness and the limits of the proposed indicator and the possible application fields. La crisi economica innescata dalla pandemia da Covid-19 ha determinato un diffuso clima di incertezza, evidenziando la fragilità del sistema economico e la necessità di una gestione maggiormente efficiente degli investimenti sul territorio. Eventi estremi (ambientali, sociali, sanitari, economici) generano shock ai quali è necessario reagire prontamente, e per tale ragione molti investitori istituzionali stanno indirizzando i loro capitali verso interventi sostenibili. Nel settore immobiliare questo trend si traduce nella promozione di iniziative finalizzate a migliorare l’efficienza del patrimonio edilizio esistente, coerentemente con i principi dell’economia circolare, e con il contrasto del consumo di suolo. Nella presente ricerca è stato proposto un indicatore composito, che consente di analizzare la performance di diversi investimenti immobiliari (nuove costruzioni, demolizioni e ricostruzioni, ristrutturazioni, ecc.), valutati rispetto alla redditività attesa, alle caratteristiche specifiche del mercato immobiliare di riferimento delle iniziative considerate ed ai diversi profili di rischio-rendimento degli investitori. Il caso studio, relativo a due differenti investimenti localizzati nella città di Roma (Italia), ha permesso di testare l’efficacia ed i limiti dell’indicatore proposto, oltre che i possibili campi di applicazione.

The widespread uncertainty that characterizes the current world economic situation has also influenced the real estate market, leading investors towards generally lower risk profiles and more stable returns. However, in the absence of adequate skills, it is difficult to carefully manage the main risks factors which occur during the decision-making process. The aim of the research is to define and implement an asset allocation evaluation model able to support public and private investors for the identification of the most suitable allocation of limited financial resources for core/core plus real estate investments. The computational logic of goal programming is applied for detecting the optimal composition of property portfolios in terms of risk/return. The proposed model has been implemented to an Italian case study, proving to be a valid support tool in the definition of efficient real estate investment strategies.

The establishment of the “extraordinary urbanization contribution” with Law no. 165 of 2014 requires regulating the division between public and private of the capital gains achievable from interventions on urban areas or buildings as variant or in derogation of the regulatory instruments in force. The “free interpretation” of the aforementioned directive left to regional and local decision makers – regarding a) the procedures for assessing the higher value generated by the urban planning variant compared to the pre variant situation and b) the exact percentage of the extraordinary contribution to be used – has led to a methodologically uneven and confused national panorama. This work aims to define and test a rational procedure for assessing the higher value activated by the intervention, comparing the situation before and after the urban variation, and to determine the amount of the gross floor area achievable with the transformation that the private subject is required to pay to the Public Administration, due to the percentage variation of the extraordinary contribution. L’istituzione del “contributo straordinario di urbanizzazione” con la Legge n.165 del 2014 richiede di regolamentare la ripartizione tra pubblico e privato del plusvalore conseguibile da interventi su aree o immobili in variante urbanistica o in deroga agli strumenti vigenti. La “libera interpretazione” della suddetta norma lasciata ai decisori regionali e locali – in merito a) ai procedimenti di stima del maggior valore generato dalla variante urbanistica rispetto alla situazione ante variante e b) all’esatta percentuale del contributo straordinario da impiegare – si è tradotta in un panorama nazionale metodologicamente frastagliato e confuso. Il presente lavoro ha l’obiettivo di delineare e testare una procedura razionale di stima del maggior valore attivato dall’intervento, mettendo a confronto la situazione ante e post variante urbanistica, e di determinare l’ammontare della superficie lorda di pavimentazione realizzabile con la variante che la parte privata è tenuta a corrispondere alla Pubblica Amministrazione, in ragione della variazione percentuale del contributo straordinario.

The real estate market constitutes one of the major sectors that was influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is therefore useful to understand the ways in which COVID-19 has changed the dynamics of the real estate market, establishing new trends in different market segments. The health crisis has upset the consolidated “human normality” by spreading new behaviors and involving almost all sectors. Among economic fields, the identification of temporary and permanent impacts on the real estate market is fundamental to assess the consequences worldwide and to evaluate countries’ resilience ability. The aim of the research is to provide a systematic literature review on the existent academic insights in order to identify the aspects that have been mainly addressed regarding the real estate market’s impacts from COVID-19 and to grasp how the real estate market dynamics have changed. Thus, through five structured steps—from the formulation of research questions formulation to an analysis and discussion of the selected papers for drafting overall conclusions—102 research papers published in the period between the second half of 2020 and the first half of 2023 collected from Scopus and Google Scholar were reviewed and examined. The findings reveal that (i) the housing market has been the most analyzed, (ii) the period between 2021 and 2022 has been the most scientifically prolific, (iii) the US real estate market has been the most studied, (iv) American authors have been the most active on the subject, (v) and the “article” type of research paper has been the most published. These results provide the basis for future research developments on COVID-19 and real estate market dynamics, supporting the implementation of recovery plan strategies and decision-making processes of the market operators for improving the sector.

The present research has focused on the development and experimentation of a model for the forced sale value determination. With reference to six study samples consisting of residential properties sold through judicial auctions between November 2020 and May 2021 and each of them located in an Italian region, the forced sale price, the market value assessed by a judicial valuer and the main influencing factors have been detected. The implementation of an econometric technique has allowed to obtain models for the forced sale value assessment and for the analysis of the factors that mostly influence the final hammer price and, therefore, the discount between the market value evaluated and the judicial price. In the context of the existing literature, the study represents the first attempt that proposes a quantification of the discount/premium coefficient based on the specific factors of the property, in order to provide a reliable assessment of the forced sale value.

With reference to brownfield sites redevelopment interventions, an innovative model for the definition of effective and financially sustainable initiatives is proposed and tested. The model borrows the operative logic of the break-even analysis (BEA). It neglects the basic assumption of BEA related to revenue linearity, by considering the real trend of the revenues. In fact, in specific contexts characterized by a real estate over supply—e.g., in small urban centers, or where a new plan includes a relevant increase in new buildings and/or the functional reconversion of existing disused complexes—the BEA hypothesis on revenue linearity could be inconsistent, as prices will tend to become depressed. In the mentioned situations, discount mechanisms on the unit prices could occur. These phenomena determine a reduction in the unit selling price in correspondence of the amount of gross floor area (GFA) increase. Taking into account the current and cogent needs of effective strategies for brownfields renovation, the innovative evaluation model is developed for supporting public and private investors’ decision processes. It could represent a valid reference in the preliminary phases of decision-making processes for public and private subjects, able to ensure the break-even point of the initiative balance sheet is reached.

The development and management models of land use—both natural and man-made—and infrastructures, in order to be considered sustainable, must guarantee the inhabitants of the area the satisfaction of their vital needs in a way that can also continue to be implemented in the future, without conflicting with the limited availability of natural resources on the planet [...]

The issue of sustainability is central to development strategies. Although this alignment is acknowledged and shared world-wide, territorial development in a sustainable light must also take the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic into consideration, specifically by evaluating the effects of COVID-19 on the global health, social order, and economic-environmental system. The research suggests a sensitivity index to gauge the degree of territorial sustainability taking the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts into account. A study set of countries, as identified by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), is used to test the developed index. The index evaluates a country’s performance in terms of economic, social, and environmental sustainability while also considering the relative risk of COVID-19. The proposed index measures territorial sustainability from a variety of angles by enabling comparisons between the circumstances before and after current shocks in the socioeconomic and environmental performance frames by pandemic emergency. The index was created using an integrated assessment method that was based on the Choquet Integral (CI) mathematical framework and Multi-Attributive Ideal-Real Comparative Analysis (MAIRCA). The study establishes a unique and up-scaling methodology for constructing the sensitivity index, significantly advancing the suggestions for sustainable accounting under uncertain circumstances at the territorial scale. Adopting indices that quantify territorial sustainability under uncertainty may help guide policy decisions from an investment programming viewpoint, particularly when it comes to allocating financial resources to the economic sectors most impacted by shock events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The present paper deals with the evaluation of the financial sustainability of a public property enhancement initiative, realized by a public-private partnership procedure. The development of the Discounted Cash Flow Analysis has provided for a preliminary phase in which the public and private subjects involved in the initiative have been identified, the respective roles have been specified and the costs and the revenues have been assessed. The research highlights the relevant support that, in the initial steps of the definition of an investment in public-private partnership, may result from the disaggregation and the specification of the different roles of all the subjects involved in the initiative. The functions mix provided by the enhancement process and the different management modalities allow the private investor to transfer the risks of the initiative to subjects most competent in their specific market sector. The performance indicators determined for the case study have outlined the financial feasibility of the investment for the private investor.

With reference to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), the financial budget provided for a specific project constitutes a fundamental constraint to be taken into account in the selection phase of the initiatives to be carried out. In the present research, a methodological approach based on an optimization algorithm that allows one to minimize the differential between the assessed costs and the budget provided for the project, has been defined. The methodology is organized in three phases and, by borrowing the logic of the Operational Research, aims to minimize the gap between the costs assessed by the expert technician and the final costs, in order to fit the preliminary set budget. In this sense, the developed tool constitutes an effective support for Public Administrations and private investors for choosing the investments to be implemented, in order to identify the best initiatives in which to allocate the public funding, by preventing needless waste of limited financial resources that could be invested in alternative interventions, and to generate further benefits for the communities.

The current global economic situation, characterized by a scarce availability of public monetary resources, makes it necessary the involvement of the private entrepreneurs in the urban enhancement initiatives. In this framework, the present paper aimed at providing an effective support for assessing the financial conveniences of the subjects involved (Public Administration and private investors). Through an original interpretation of the classical criteria of the Discounted Cash Flow Analysis (DCFA), a methodology that defines the combinations of the financial performance indicators is proposed. The outputs of the developed application highlight the utility of the method, that constitutes a rapid and easily interpretable tool in the negotiation phases of the urban regeneration initiatives.

In recent decades, the issue of existing buildings’ energy retrofit has played a central role in the context of international and national territorial development policies, mainly due to the obsolescence state that characterizes the housing stock. Since the current need for energy renovation collides with the widespread low spending capacity of the owners, in recent years numerous fiscal incentives have been envisaged, aimed at promoting building initiatives for the improvement of energy performance indices. With reference to the Italian fiscal measure so-called Superbonus, introduced by the “Relaunch” Law Decree No. 34/2020, in the present research, a model for evaluating the economic benefits, in terms of the convenience of the operators involved, generated by energy requalification interventions, has been proposed. The analysis has been developed with regards to the Italian territory and to the prevailing building typology, by considering 110 provincial capitals and the main urban areas into which each city is divided (central, semi-central, and peripheral). Specifically, for each urban area of the Italian capitals considered, the market value differential between the after energy and before energy intervention situations has been firstly determined. Furthermore, assuming an ordinary profit margin of a generic investor interested in this type of investment, the break-even incentive, i.e., the percentage threshold able to ensure the condition of minimum convenience for an investor, has been estimated for each urban area.

Due to the forced changes that the COVID-19 pandemic has had in many aspects of ordinary life (working, social life, training and learning in schools etc.), the characteristics of domestic spaces have significantly modified buying, selling and renting decisions in the real estate market. The aim of this research was to structure a methodology, articulated into four steps, to assess the variation that has occurred in residential market demand as a result of COVID-19 anti-contagion measures, with regard to six metropolitan Italian cities. We considered two samples of properties for each city, the first referencing the pre-COVID-19 pandemic spread and the second collected in the current situation. Consequently, we were able to determine variations in residential market appreciations through the application of a regressive econometric technique. The obtained results highlighted the relevance assumed by indoor acoustic and thermal comfort property factors, compared with the pre-COVID-19 condition. The proposed methodology could be useful to support the public and private entities involved in urban investment decision-making processes, allowing us to identify the most appreciated factors of the residential real estate market demand, in order to improve the conditions of existing and future assets and reduce the related risk levels.

The economic crisis of 2008 has highlighted the ineffectiveness of the banks in their disbursement of mortgages which caused the spread of Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) with underlying real estate. With the methods stated by the Basel III agreements, aimed at improving the capital requirements of banks and determining an adequate regulatory capital, the banks without the skills required have difficulties in applying the rigid weighting coefficients structures. The aim of the work is to identify a synthetic risk index through the participatory process, in order to support the restructuring debt operations to benefit smaller banks and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), by analyzing the real estate credit risk. The proposed synthetic risk index aims at overcoming the complexity of Basel III methodologies through the implementation of three different multi-criteria techniques. In particular, the integration of objective financial variables with subjective expert judgments into a participatory process is not that common in the reference literature and brings its benefits for reaching more approved and shared results in the debt restructuring operations procedure. Moreover, the main findings derived by the application to a real case study have demonstrated how important it is for the credit manager to have an adequate synthetic index that could lead to the avoidance of risky scenarios where several modalities to repair the credit debt occur.

Among environmental factors, noise represents one of the most relevant determinants on human health and on the urban quality level and, consequently, on real estate values. Thus, the noise pollution issue plays a significant role in public urban policies aimed at increasing the acoustic comfort level and creating more sustainable and comfortable cities. The real estate market is highly sensitive to noise factor and the residential prices can be strongly influenced by a high acoustic pollution rate. The present research aims to analyze the functional relationships between noise pollution and selling prices in four municipal areas of the city of Bari (Southern Italy). For each area, a study sample constituted by two hundred residential properties sold in 2017–2019 was detected for the identification of the main influential factors on prices and the investigation of the contribution of noise on them. The implementation of an econometric technique was used to obtain four different models (one for each municipal area of the city of Bari) able to explain the specific impact of noise pollution level on selling prices. From the comparison of the results obtained for each area, the outputs confirm the expected phenomena in terms of a decrease of noise component influence on residential prices from the central area to the peripheral. For the suburban area of the city of Bari, the model obtained does not include the noise pollution factor, showing a lower (scarce) importance of the environmental factor among the buyer and seller bargaining phases.

In the preliminary stages of urban investments, the Public Administration (PA) has often to deal with complex decisional problems characterized by many variables and conflicting objectives. In these phases, the evaluation is a useful tool that, through the application of multi-criteria analysis, can support the PA in the transformation of a problem characterized by high uncertainty and mostly qualitative judgments of value, in a logical-mathematical model to guide the decisions. Defined the objective of the investment, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method is particularly useful in the comparison and in the choice of projectual alternatives described through a variety of independent criteria and often in conflict with each other. A series of pairwise comparisons - first between the various criteria and then between the various alternatives on the basis of each criterion - allows to sort the solutions by returning the degree of pursuit of the initial objective. The application of AHP to the case study of an Italian historical building damaged by the earthquake, highlights the ease of use of AHP, its robustness, confirmed by the consistency analysis, and the transparency of the procedure, that is devoid of "black boxes".

The present research is focalized on public-private partnership (PPP) procedures as a driving force of urban sustainable development. The paper intends to point out the relevant role played by the public administrations in the implementation of these mechanisms aimed at degraded urban area renovation, public property assets enhancement, or ex novo realization. In this sense, in the existing reference literature, the private investor tasks and risks have been often explored, neglecting the significant public entities position. The efficiency in the use of the PPP is verified through the discounted cash-flow analysis (DCFA) implementation: the assessment of the costs and the revenues derived from the project allows the private investor to verify the financial feasibility of the initiative. In the context outlined, the public administration could contribute to the success of the intervention through a periodic fee paid to the private investor in order to ensure the financial convenience of the project. In the present research, a functional reconversion operation related to a building located in the small town of Cesano Romano (Italy) and carried out through the PPP operational tool, has been illustrated. In the analysis, a public monetary amount has been considered and determined, able (i) to guarantee the financial sustainability for the private investor and (ii) to comply with the regulatory constraints in the Italian context. Finally, a scenario analysis has been developed to identify the situation/s in which public participation is necessary for the convenience of the initiative and to quantify this monetary amount.

The design of a natural park is generated by the need to protect and organize, for conservation and/or for balanced growth, parts of the territory that are of particular interest for the quality of the natural and historical–cultural heritage. The necessary tool to support the decision-making process in the design of a natural park are the financial and economic evaluations, which intervene in three successive steps: in the definition of protection and enhancement levels of the park areas; in the choice of the interventions to be implemented for the realization of these levels of protection and enhancement; in determining and verifying the economic and financial results obtainable from the project execution. This contribution deals with aspects and issues relating to the economic and financial evaluation of natural park projects. In particular, an application of the “Complex Social Value” to a concrete case of environmental design is developed on the basis of the elements that can be deduced from a feasibility study of a natural park: the levels of protection and enhancement of the homogeneous areas of the natural park are preliminarily defined, and the choice of the design alternative to be implemented is, therefore, rationalized with multicriteria analysis.

In this research, the socio-economic determinants of housing market values have been examined, highlighting their respective contributions to the formation of the property prices and, in particular, verifying the property tax liability. The property tax is a factor that could determine, through modest fluctuations, the revival of the property demand, generating positive effects also on the construction sector, which has been currently affected by the negative real estate contingency. The functional correlations of housing prices with the main socio-economic variables considered (i.e., housing rents, household incomes, household consumptions, property taxes, population and mean population age) have been explained through an econometric analysis implemented with an innovative methodology that uses multi-objective genetic algorithms. The analysis is contextualized to the Apulia region in the South of Italy, and the population of the sample studied consists of 258 individuals, corresponding to the municipalities of the region. In particular, the data collected for each variable considered refer to two different moments, that is, the year 2011 and the year 2015, in order to take into account the fiscal tightening that has occurred in Italy in this period of time. The elaborations carried out have allowed us to enucleate interesting functional relationships between property prices and the explanatory variables considered.

In 1967, a national architectural competition was released for a preliminary project proposal, aimed at the realization of the new building for the Chamber of Deputies in Rome. The outcomes of that competition were unusual: eighteen projects were declared joint winners, and no winner was consequently selected. With reference to that event, this research aims to examine the usefulness of the evaluation tools that are currently employed and the positive effects that one of these techniques would have had, as support for the identification of the “winner” project, are highlighted. Therefore, an hypothetical examination/adjustment of the decision process of that competition through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is developed, analyzing the outputs obtained by the implementations of this technique on the final decision. In addition to confirming the usefulness of the evaluation tools for compound and conflicting decision processes, the results of this experiment led to a further understanding of the socio-cultural dynamics related to the original outcomes of the competition analyzed.

Following the crisis generated by the financialization of private real-estate, construction prices have gradually decreased depriving the housing market of the necessary growth stimuli. Many countries have set up measures to revive this highly strategic area for the national economy. With reference to the Campania Region Law n. 19 dated 28 December 2009, known Housing Plan, this work has two objectives: to recognize the fundamental estimation problems that need to be solved in the implementation of the Campania Housing Plan; in addition, predict the effects of the regulations on the regional economy, both in overall terms as well as for each production sector, with particular attention being given to the construction industry. Regarding the first objective, the contents of the law are analysed on the basis of the principles that govern the appraisal. The consequences of the Campania Housing Plan on the economic system are then evaluated using input-output matrices, which are able to capture the structural relationships that exist among the various productive sectors. The numerical calculations require a preliminary investigation aimed at collecting a list of interventions approved by local governments in accordance to the Housing Plan. The cost of the works, as proposed in the applications submitted to the local administrations, is the input data for the implementation of the Social Accounting Matrix 2010 of the Campania Region.

To estimate the value of a real estate through the capitalization of the incomes, the determination of the suitable cap rate is generally make with the analogical process. This is usually inferred by a price-earnings ratio of similar investments. The analogy concerns the risk and the duration of the investment. There is a wide range of methods to rationalize the indirect valuation of the cap rate. However, in all these methods the appraisal holds uncertainty. In this paper a methodology which removes uncertainty in the valuation of the cap rate is proposed. In this method the uncertainty is transformed in risk. The aim is achieved by the combination of the formal logic of the Ellwood’s model and the Real Options Analysis. Therefore, the algorithm defined has been implemented in a software for the real estate appraisal, described by an immediate and simply user interface.