17 May 2001 Professors come together for Property Institute conference

Past and present real estate and property studies professors at Lincoln University come together at the first national conference of the new, amalgamated New Zealand Property Institute in Christchurch this week (16-18 May).

Among the guest speakers to address the 300-plus delegates will be Lincoln University's current Professor of Property Studies, Billy McCluskey, and the University's first Professor of Real Estate, John Baen.

They will present a joint session at the conference on Friday afternoon entitled International Property Trends.

The conference is the inaugural gathering of the institute which embraces the former Institute of Valuers, the Property and Land Economy Institute and the Institute of Plant and Machinery Valuers.

American John Baen came to Lincoln from the University of Texas in 1989 and headed the development of the University's real estate teaching and research programmes.

He established close links with the three separate professional institutes then involved in the field - real estate, valuation, and property management - and returned to the United States in 1992, where he is now Professor of Real Estate at the University Of Texas College Of Business Administration.

Professor Baen addressed the conference today (Thursday 17.5) on "The Impact of the New Economy on Property".

Irishman Professor McCluskey came to Lincoln from the University of Ulster at the beginning of this year. At Ulster he had been Senior lecturer in Real Estate and Valuation.

Professor McCluskey's main professional and academic interests are in the field of valuation, specifically the comparative analysis of real property tax systems, public finance and policy, computer assisted mass appraisal modelling and the application of geographic information systems to property valuation.

Professor Baen is one of four keynote speakers at the conference.  The others are Sir Tipene O'Regan, Australian historian and commentator Professor Geoffrey Blainey, and the Executive Chairman of Southern Capital Ltd, Graeme Wong.

Professor McCluskey is one of seven plenary and concurrent session speakers along with Brian Kellett, an Associate of Beca Valuations Ltd; Robert Davison, Executive Director of the Meat and Wool Economic Service of New Zealand; Ray Parker, CEO of Tasman Agriculture; John Marshall, a consultant with barristers and solicitors Knight Coldicutt; Gwendoline Daly of Colliers Jardine (NZ) Ltd; and a speaker from trans­ national law firm Phillips Fox.

The conference venue is Christchurch's Hotel Grand Chancellor.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.