I am glad to say that this latest edition of "The Income Approach to Property Valuation" is a return to form. Once again it feels like, and is, a substantial text book that, for the whole, covers the salient aspects of the property market and the valuation of property as an asset.
The book is divided into a number of chapters:
Chapter 1. Introduction and Quick Start To The Income Approach
Chapter 2. Financial Mathematics for Property Valuers
Chapter 3. Discounted Cash Flow
Chapter 4. Basic Principles
Chapter 5. The Income Approach: Freeholds
Chapter 6. The Income Approach: Leaseholds
Chapter 7. The Income Approach: Taxation and Valuation
Chapter 8. Landlord and Tenant (Valuations And Negotiations)
Chapter 9. The Effects of Legislation
Chapter 10. Development Opportunities
Chapter 11. Profits Approach for Trade Related Properties
Chapter 12. Investment Analysis
As with any text, it could be argued that the chapters could be reordered. For example, I would prefer the discussion in Chapter 12 to be much earlier so that the distinction between "price", "value" and "worth" is discussed in more depth before the reader plunges into the chapters on valuation methods, but that is a pedantry. The book flows well and is a great exposition of how markets work (or don't work) and how the valuer needs to read the market signs to value a property in a given market.
This is the best introductory text on the market. Baum is the author of a number of other texts that are more advanced or more specialised (all of which are excellent) but if you are a student studying property valuation for the first time, ignore the plethora of other text books that purport to be good introductions to the topic. Just buy this book, you will not regret it.
Nick French, Oxford Brookes University, July 2011