Members of committee to set global property measuring standards selected

Leading property professionals from around the world have been appointed to create the first global standard for measuring property.

The International Property Measurement Standards Coalition (IPMSC) has selected 19 real estate experts from around the world to join its Standards Setting Committee to develop a global standard for measuring property.

The committee includes experts with first hand knowledge in 50 countries across five continents. It will act independently and is tasked with the job of drafting and consulting industry on a global standard measurement methodology.

Currently, the way property assets such as office, residential, retail and industrial are measured can vary considerably from country to country. With so many different methods in use, it makes it difficult for global investors and occupiers to accurately compare space.

With the implementation of a global property measurement standard, properties will be consistently measured and thus creating a more transparent marketplace, greater public trust, stronger investor confidence, and increased market stability.

The standard will have a significant impact on the way property is measured, leading to improvements in valuation and financial reporting consistency across international markets.

Standards Setting Committee members include academics, real estate fund and asset managers, residential professionals, valuers, and specialists in development and construction.

'Property is a global business for international investors, corporate occupiers and their advisers, but floor space measuring practices vary from country to country and even between markets in the same country,' said Max Crofts, chairman of the Standard Setting Committee.

'Encouraged by our first meeting at the World Bank, we intend to create standards of measurement that will not only complement international financial reporting and valuation standards but also enable the collection and use of reliable data across worldwide markets,' he added.

According to Allen Crawford, vice chairman of the committee, it is a challenging task to draw together the intelligence that has gone on across the world over the past decades and then creating what must be regarded as the World's Best Practice for the Measurement of Buildings. 

'There are many Standards in existence across the world but these have been largely uncoordinated. The committee members are focussed on ensuring the Standard is the World's Best Practice.  We will know that we have succeeded when the new standard is embraced globally by the property industry,' he explained.



The fact that since forming in May the IPMS Coalition has now selected a world class Standard Setting Committee shows that working together the property profession can be effective, agile and quick, said Ken Creighton, director of Professional Standards at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors based in London.

'We look forward to an open, consultative and effective standard setting process in the year ahead,' he added.

The Standards Setting Committee will start work on the drafting of the new methodology immediately and aims to have a draft ready for widespread consultation in the early part of 2014.

The International Property Measurement Coalition was established at a meeting hosted by the World Bank in Washington at the beginning of May 2013. propertywire