An Application of the REN Manager in the Field of Housing Management

There is a continuous and urgent need for standardisation of discussion about quality of real estate. On behalf of this discussion, a tool called REN Manager has been developed. REN is an abbreviation of Real Estate Norm, a client-oriented tool for measuring, planning and communication in the field of housing management. The development of the REN Manager is a continuation of REN research project. In this paper we start with an introduction of the REN research project. Further we focus on the application of the REN tool in the field of housing management as part of a set of tools for strategic portfolio management. After this introduction we will elaborate more about the REN and the underlying analyses. One of the essential functions of REN is the match between the demanded and offered perfonnance of a dwelling estate. By several surveys among tenants the relevant aspects and parameters are determined. These parameters are related to the performance level of a dwelling as well as to the weight of these levels. This part of the paper deals with the results of these analyses and the problems involved in the method used. The results are used as the input for the REN Manager. At the end we will discuss the functionality of the REN Manager as a decision support system on both operational level (matching) and strategic portfolio management (allocation ofinvestrnent).