The Australian Property Research and Education Fund (APREF) has awarded research grants to researchers from RMIT, the University of NSW, the University of South Australia and Deakin University this year.  

This year’s grant round was highly competitive, with 23 strong applications from researchers located around the country. 

This year’s APREF research grant winners are:  

  • Dulani Halvitigala, Judith Callanan and Rebecca Leshinsky from RMIT for their submission, “Towards more Inclusive Equality and Diversity for the Australian Valuation Industry”.  
  • Balamurugan Soundararaj, Prof Ali Soltani, Dr Chyi Lin Lee, Prof Chris Pettit and Mr Peter Rossini from the University of NSW and the University of South Australia for their submission, “Towards Understanding the Dynamics of the Regional Property Markets of Australia: Spatio-Temporal Analysis, Predictive Modelling, And Visualisation of Sales in Regional SA and NSW”. 
  • Qiang Li and Ameeta Jain from Deakin University for their submission, “Housing Market Resilience in Australia: 2000-2021”. 

APREF outlined five key research topics for applicants to focus on this year, including the relationship between property values and inflation, wages and population growth. The other topics were evaluating the economic, public health and/or environmental effects to property; property profession workforce planning; future Australian cities; and future regional Australia. 

In addition to grant funding, the winners will get to present their research findings to Australian Property Institute (API) Members. 

The API established APREF to advance the twin arms of research and education, training and development; in the property industry specifically in valuation and land economy.  

The Fund has Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) status and is a registered charity with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission.