Evaluation on the Relative Importance of Planning Elements in Policy-driven Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) Using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) Method

This study was set to objectively examine the relative importance and priorities for the planning elements of domestic policy-driven real estate investment trusts (REITs). To this end, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique were conducted as the methodology with an expert survey for 29 sub-indicators among 32 professionals in the real estate industry, including REITs companies and financial investors. The principal findings of this study were summarized as follows. Firstly, the importance of the initial projects such as implementation, development, finance and construction which covers location, real estate, and financing was highly evaluated in high and middle classifications, followed by operation, management and disposal. Secondly, locations, investors, land acquisition, lending rates and rent costs were ranked at the top in terms of overall importance and priority that applied different weights for each hierarchy. In contrast, job creation, property management training and community programs were ranked at the bottom, which suggested significant differences in the perception of importance between public and private sectors. Thirdly, the inconsistency ratio for evaluation criteria was lower than the acceptable level as of 0.15, which means that there was no logical contradiction in the responses. The result indicated that the K-REITs still prioritize profitability instead of public interests or social benefits. In conclusion, this study is meaningful as it could provide a basis for a reasonable evaluation system about investment decision-making criteria by identifying planning elements of policy-driven REITs as opposed to private-market REITs. This study is also expected to be useful for developing strategies to gain competitive advantages and improving business structures on domestic policy-driven REITs in the future.