Today’s uploads include a National Real Estate Investor article about Landauer Associates, my professional home 1978 - 2001. This is a 50th Anniversary feature piece, and still a great outline of how a premier real estate consulting company with a diverse practice was organized and served its clientele. Not incidentally, the article lays out how research played a significant foundational role for the firm. Look under the Consulting page/Landauer.
A second upload is a 1991 article I wrote for SIOR Professional Report entitled “Are You Kidding? Commitment to Real Estate Investment in the 1990s”. This piece was something of a “contrarian” perspective published at the depths of the Savings and Loan Crisis, when the Federal Government was acquiring the troubled assets of the Thrifts via the Resolution Trust Corporation. The essay begins'
With the investment community avoiding real estate with the icy disposition of a spurned lover, the early 1990s may seem to be the wrong time to bring up the subject of a long-term commitment.
Now, as 2020 (thankfully) elides into 2021 and real estate transaction activity has been cut about in half since 2019, I believe this contrarian perspective may again be useful to the investment community.
Lastly, as I undertake this renewal of my website, I have compiled a complete set of the Landauer Forecasts during my tenure, a set of contemporary discussions of the state of the industry and its outlook from 1984 through 2001. I will be digitizing these in the coming weeks. Hopefully these will not merely be helpful for historical reasons, but will illustrate how research helps shape industry judgement and decision-making, as well as showing the evolution of several analytical techniques developed in the course of the Forecasting process.