Buying green

Green development has received much attention over the past decade, with the greatest interest coming from designers. However, the development and investment communities have been slower to adopt green principles, and the author claims that this hesitancy is related to an information gap around the costs and benefits of green building. When researchers do quantify cost or value differentials, they do it on a case study basis. By focusing on a few extraordinary examples that are ultimately placeless, these case studies create an information gap between the extraordinary performance of a few buildings (what is possible) and the ordinary performance of a typical green building (what is expected). Through the development of a simple real estate market model, the author argues that information on what is expected drives decision making in real estate, and market-based studies that are segmented by place and product type would provide more pertinent information to these industry players. If green buildings create greater value over a building's lifecycle, then green building owners should expect superior returns over time. However, no one has tested this hypothesis for a particular real estate market with a large number of green buildings. To that end, the author develops a methodology that could be used to complete such a study.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Real Estate

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Bradshaw, William B., II

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• William Shutkin.

• Urban Studies and Planning.
• Center for Real Estate.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/58665

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/58665