History

In the early days of property research, the small number of individuals involved tended to keep in touch with each other informally.  Around the start of 1980s the growth of the property research in firms of surveyors and consultancies encouraged a few organisations to bring researchers together for relatively informal events. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the University of Cambridge and the Polytechnic of Central London all organised meetings.  Those invited tended to be the Head of Research from each of the London firms with a research department. This left other members of research teams and researchers elsewhere somewhat out of touch. Thoughts about a Society for Property Researchers began to develop.

The wide range of disciplines involved in property research also meant that existing single discipline societies, for example the Society of Business Economists, did not cater for all property researchers.  The need for a society specifically for property research prompted the formation in June 1987 of an interim working party. Brian Waldy, Head of Research at department Fletcher King, sent a letter to the Estates Gazette, inviting all full-time researchers to an inaugural meeting of the embryonic Society of Property Researchers. Nearly 100 people attended that inaugural meeting in November 1987 and gave the working party a mandate to draw up a constitution and devise a programme of events for the Society. A year later the constitution was ratified at the first AGM of the Society. Over the same period the number of individual members had grown considerably as had the range of organisations covered.

The Society developed from a perceived need into an established professional organisation.

Object

As set out in its constitution, the Society exists

  • to improve the standing and promote the expertise of the property researcher,
  • to foster and maintain high standards of professional ability and practice,
  • to support and further the interests of the property research community and
  • to provide a forum for the discussion of matters of interest to property researchers.