Reality Management

Introduction to the Companion

Real estate development is a significant factor in shaping the built environment. It shapes the way people live and work, and by doing so determines and enables human activity to evolve. Around the globe, real estate development forms a contemporary reflection of societal needs and market demand of particular geographies. Nonetheless, due to globalization we increasingly witness similar needs and demands for space despite institutional differences existing between countries and cities. Within each context real estate development is concerned with innovations, such as introducing new forms of development finance, setting up new types of development partnerships, or incorporating sustainable solutions within development processes. As such the practice and science of real estate development is subject to constant change, reflected in a diversity of topics that are addressed in both academic publications and professional practice. As an applied and practice-oriented science, real estate development studies and provides answers to for current and future societal questions and market needs, and by nature can be seen as a multidisciplinary endeavor. These intriguing notions ask for a better understanding of the real estate development phenomenon in all its complexity.