Early stage construction price forecasting: a review of performance (RICS Occasional Paper)

The aim of construction price forecasting is to provide an estimate of the market price of construction contracts. The estimates may be for individual or groups of past, present or future projects entering the contract market. They are made by a variety of interested parties ranging from government and other institutional agencies concerned with general price trends, to designers and construction contractors concerned with the price of specific contracts. This review relates to designers' price forecasts of specific current construction contracts. Designers' construction price forecasting, a function often undertaken by Quantity Surveyors in the UK, is essentially a commercial activity albeit part of a larger package of services normally provided by the Quantity Surveying profession. As such, the organisation providing the forecasting service has to consider the balance between the quality and cost of providing that service within the general business objectives of resource enhancement and creation of further business opportunities. Although the intention is to eventually investigate all these considerations with a view to systemising the forecasting decision process in some way, this paper is restricted to the aspect of quality of service and its determinants.