Quality issues in building project price forecasting: factors affecting model selection

Clients considering the procurement of sustainable building projects as solutions to their accommodation problems are involved in making value-for-money business decisions. One dimension of such decisions is the need to take account of good quality early stage building project price advice. Quality in terms of the provision of early stage building project price forecasts for clients is explored in this paper, and a broader, more multi-stranded approach is advanced that will help to put current research efforts on the development of more accurate price forecasting models into context. In particular, the paper addresses one of these identified research themes, namely the selection of appropriate building project price forecasting model(s) for use. The extent to which practitioners fail to understand price-forecasting models is assessed in terms of the extent to which this creates a barrier to model selection. This is done by reference to the results of a large-scale quantitatively based study that was carried out with over two thousand three hundred practitioner organizations in England. Other, more positive criteria are identified that are suspected as affecting model selection. It concludes by developing a rudimentary framework within which the more influential of these selection criteria can be identified. It is anticipated that the eventual development of a tool to aid model selection by practitioners will contribute towards the provision of better quality building project price advice for clients.