This paper investigates differences in the views of rent negotiating landlords and retail trade tenants regarding the importance of various factors in their rent negotiations. The paper explores whether these actors’ expectations are forward or backward looking as economic activity is increasing after the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, their different levels of trust in institutions, and in their counterpart as organisation and individual, are analysed. The study uses a web-based survey, gathering responses from some 100 landlords and tenants in the Swedish retail sector, and logit regressions. As demand increases after the pandemic, indicating a possibility to increase rents, the study finds that landlords are forward looking at this stage of the business cycle as regards industry developments, while tenants are backward looking or more focused on current contractual rents. Tenants focus more on vacancies and property value, which are set under pressure due to structural changes such as increased use of e-commerce and changes in working habits after the pandemic. Landlords show a higher level of trust in their counterpart as an individual than do tenants. This study contributes to an increased understanding of rent negotiations in two sectors – property and retail – that are facing structural challenges and difficulties in the wake of the pandemic. 

Purpose: The purpose is to increase knowledge of rent negotiations by investigating differences in beliefs held by property landlords and retailers on factors that they deem important in rent negotiation. Design/methodology/approach: This study investigates differences in subjective beliefs held by landlords and retail trade tenants on factors that affect rent levels during the rent negotiation process using a factor analysis approach. Semi-structured interviews were made with seven large real estate owners/landlords and retailers and eight experts in negotiating retail rent to elicit variables that have an impact on retail rent. Thereafter, a web-based survey was sent to 421 respondents who had experience in rent negotiation. Several factors were extracted using factor analysis. The data collection was made in Sweden during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in late spring 2021 Findings: Significant differences are found in beliefs held by landlords and retail trade tenants in four out of seven-factor: regional growth, e-commerce, customer focus and trust. Landlords rate these factors higher than retailers do. There are also systematic differences between landlords and retailers depending on their education levels on the following factors: rent and vacancies, e-commerce and customer focus. The number of years of experience did not prove to be significant instead differences are found to exist in factors Research limitations/implications: Not only do traditional factors of importance, such as lease structure, the effect of location, size and anchor or non-anchor tenants, have an effect on negotiated rent levels. Differences in other factors also exist, such as regional growth, e-commerce, customer focus and trust factors that may play an important role in the negation of retail rent. Practical implications: The findings provide new insights into the different views on factors that affect rent negotiations between landlords and retail tenants. Knowledge of such differences may increase the overall transparency in the negotiation process. Transparency may be increased by putting forward information on these factors before a negotiation takes place, in order to smooth differences in their beliefs. Social implications: If transparency in the negotiation process of retail rent increases, time to reach an agreement, stress and anxiety can be reduced by putting forward information on factors where differences exist between landlords and retailers Originality/value: New insights on retail rent negotiation have been put forward in this research paper. Not only do traditional factors such as lease structure matters, but subjective beliefs on factors such as regional growth and the level of education are also important, as this study has shown using a factors analysis approach.

Smart meters and in-house displays hold a promise of energy conservation for those who invest in such technology. Research has shown that households only have a limited interest in such technology and information is thus often neglected, with rather limited energy savings. Surprisingly few empirical investigations have a theoretical foundation that may explain what is going on from a behavioral perspective. In this study the economic theory of self-control is used to model energy-efficient behavior in middle-income households in Sweden. Our results show that different levels of energy-efficient behavior do not really have any impact on the actual consumption levels of electricity. Instead, different beliefs exist of being energy-efficient, but the households do not act accordingly. We recommend to policy makers that the payment time period should be changed to pre-paid electricity to stimulate the monitoring of bills and to introduce a gaming strategy to change incentives for energy conservation. rights reserved.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to measure the effect of unobservable factors on residential choice behaviour in an attempt to advance the understanding of how to perform advanced market analysis. This research is important to residential developers, as the diversity of preferences is increasingly driven by lifestyle-based households and affluent households.

Design/methodology/approach

Information about the pros and cons of renting an apartment in an ongoing residential development project in Stockholm came from interviews using the laddering technique. Qualitative data were subsequently analysed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to confirm which factors had the highest effect on an overall assessment of living in the development and a value-for-money conclusion.

Findings

Among the potentially important factors identified, respondents who became residents perceived the development to be more noise-free than those who did not when stating the overall value of living in the development and making a value-for-money conclusion. The perception of noise differed between the two groups, meaning that those who did not become residents believed the development to be more exposed to noise. The standard of the apartment was the second most influential factor when stating the overall value of living in the development and making a value-for-money conclusion. The belief of being able to relax in the home environment had no significant effect on overall value for either group.

Originality/value

The results show that confirmatory factor analysis can be used in measuring the effect of unobservable factors in residential choice behaviour. The methodology presented may advise developers, architects or planners in evaluating those attributes that create value-for-money to improve, for example, overall design solutions in urban development projects.

This paper presents a new model using the structural equation technique. This model integrates productivity theory and customer-perceived value to identify those key features which residential customers are looking for when making their decision to buy or to rent a residential apartment. The theoretical structural equation model was confirmed using a dataset from 283 respondents, being potential tenants of an ongoing residential construction project in Sweden consisting of 402 rental apartments. Our results show that expectations of being able to relax in the immediate neighborhood as well to feel safe in the neighborhood had a high impact on customer perceived value. Moreover, analysis of a two bedroom apartment, used as a show apartment, shows that an apartment with plenty of natural daylight and a well proportional layout had the highest impact on customer perceived value. Professional developers and municipalities could use the proposed residential customer perceived value model (RCPV-model) to increase their understanding of customer-perceived values by verifying key drivers in successful residential projects and acting on those when planning new development projects.

Residential development is closely related to the question why some people buy in certain residential developments and others do not. The reason is obvious: if the product is not appreciated by consumers they will search for another alternative which will decrease the estimated market share for a specific residential project. The main idea in this study is to increase our understanding of how to design and build more attractive residential developments by evaluating buyers' needs and preferences. Research concerning the means-end chain theory and the laddering technique has been quite extensive in the food industry but examples in residential development are rare. Laddering interviews were made with respondents who visited open house sales of a tenant-owned apartment on sale. We hypothesize that there exists a difference between bidders and non-bidders regarding their beliefs of functional and psychological consequences and abstract personal values. In our study we did not find any major difference in terminal values, but instrumental values do differ. This is true also for abstract product attributes and functional and psychological consequences. Professional developers and planners were able to use the beliefs of bidders and non-bidders to decide on a re-design of specific locations in the residential development of Frosunda, north of Stockholm, Sweden.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether residential buyers' beliefs about the built environment in a specific place influence their willingness to buy in a large-scale real-estate development (RED) by developing and testing a new attitude scale.

Design/methodology/approach – The empirical study is carried out in two phases. The first phase is a qualitative laddering study to capture the beliefs of potential buyers visiting open sales of apartments on sale in the RED of Frösunda, Sweden. In the second phase, a multivariate analysis is carried out to identify and measure factors that have an influence on their willingness to buy.

Findings – Five factors are found that describe buyers' beliefs about the built environment: urban environment, architecture, relaxation, safety and liveliness. Buyers' and non-buyers' attitudes towards these factors vary depending on the characteristics of the built environment. The means-end chain model and laddering technique proves useful in eliciting beliefs that describe how a particular place is perceived by potential buyers.

Research limitations/implications – These findings stem from one case study and a retest should be made using an independent sample to assess the generalisation of the scale.

Originality/value – This paper demonstrates novel research using the laddering technique, how real-estate buyers' attitudes and their evaluation of performance of the built environment vary depending on location. Practitioners will have a new tool for RED, if the RED scale proves to be broadly applicable to access real-estate buyers' evaluation of the performance of a residential development.

Previous research on factors that affect real estate rent levels have focused on the importance of, e.g.,  lease structure, the effect of location, size, and anchor or non-anchor tenants. To add to the knowledge of the research community, we investigate how retailers’ and real estate landlords’ views differ on factors they deem important in negotiating rent by investigating differences in their beliefs, and we also investigate the impact of education. We use a websurvey sent to Swedish landlords and retail tenants, and answered by 156 respondents (106 complete answers). With principal component analysis (PCA), the number of variables are reduced and the factors deemed important are established. Seven underlying dimensions in the rent negotiation process were labeled: Regional and industrial growth, Rent and vacancies, GDP growth, E-commerce, Customer focus, External information, and Trust. Landlords were found to put more weight on the importance of Regional and industrial growth, E-commerce, Customer focus and Trust than do tenants. We also find significant educational differences for the following factors: Rent and vacancies; E-commerce; and Customer focus.

Smart meters and in-house displays hold a promise of energy conservation for those who invest in such technology. Research has shown that households only have a limited interest in such technology and information is thus often neglected, with rather limited energy savings. Surprisingly few empirical investigations have a theoretical foundation that may explain what is going on from a behavioral perspective. In this study the economic theory of self-control is used to model energy-efficient behavior in middle-income households in Sweden. Our results show that different levels of energy-efficient behavior do not really have any impact on the actual consumption levels of electricity. Instead, different beliefs exist of being energy-efficient, but the households do not act accordingly. Our results suggest that the payment time period should be changed to stimulate the monitoring of bills and to introduce a gaming strategy to change incentives for energy conservation.