Since 2003, The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and National University of Singapore (NUS) symposium on real estate research has attracted high quality real estate researchers in Asia. For 2007, the symposium is held under the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) umbrella, jointly with Tsinghua University and University of Southern California (USC).

The Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) is a consortium of 37 leading research universities in the Pacific Rim that aims to foster education, research and enterprise so as to contribute to the economic, scientific and cultural advancement in the Pacific Rim. APRU recognizes that its activities can be powerful catalysts for expanding educational, economic, and technological cooperation among the Pacific Rim economies. In this regard, the APRU Real Estate Research Symposium provides an important networking platform that facilitates knowledge exchange and professional development of researchers in real estate.

We were pleased that David Downs, John Quigley, Timothy Riddiough, James Shilling, and Tsur Somervillle were able to join this symposium and in particular, we wish to thank NUS President Shih Choon Fong for the opening speech.

We are very pleased to bring together this special issue for the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics based on selected papers submitted to the 2007 APRU Symposium on Real Estate Research. We trust that Journal of Real Estate Finance & Economics readers will find these papers, with a distinct international and Asian favor, interesting.