CEPI - European Association of Real Estate Professions

A new standard for measuring property has been successfully launched. It creates a uniform method for measuring property and is set to replace dozens of existing standards. It aims at bringing transparency and consistency to real estate markets. It will benefit the way property assets are managed and, ultimately, how financial decisions are made by investors, corporate occupiers, buyers and sellers.

Historically, property has been measured differently throughout the world. According to research by global property firm JLL, depending on the standard used the area quoted in different markets for an equivalent building could vary by as much as 24%.

These inconsistencies have led to confusion in markets, and even led businesses to develop their own costly processes for measuring and benchmarking property assets. Investors too, including pension funds, have had to factor in variation in quoted property size when making decisions about acquiring new property.

The work to create this new global measurement standard has been spearheaded by a Coalition of more than 50 professional organisations and has been produced following global consultation by a team of 18 independent industry experts. The new standard will define which areas are included when measuring a property and which are not.

The response from industry has been overwhelmingly supportive and governments too are expected to support the adoption of IPMS as means of promoting transparency and international best practice. More than 100 businesses have already signalled their intention to request or use IPMS measurements within their organisations by signing up as Partners of the IPMS initiative.