The missing asymmetry in the Polish house price cycle: an analysis of the behaviour of house prices in 17 major cities

Journal of Housing and the Built Environment - This paper investigates the house price cycle in 17 major cities in Poland, analysing separately prices of newly constructed housing and prices in the...     

Retrofitting cities: Local governance in Sydney,Australia

Transforming cities to a lower carbon future is one of the key challenges of contemporary urban governance. Retrofitting the city – or modifying existing urban infrastructures, buildings and daily life to suit different energy sources and different expectations of energy consumption – is essential to this transformation. In urban studies, little focus has yet been applied to the shape and character of urban governance frameworks and mechanisms required to successfully retrofit cities. In this paper we address this lacuna by exploring the logics, practices and dynamics of retrofitting governance in the Australian city. Using a governmentality perspective, the paper identifies the involvements of different scales of government in retrofitting policies and mechanisms and connections between them. Based on a unique survey of carbon reduction initiatives involving government, business and community actors across Australia’s capital cities, we outline the types of retrofitting solutions being proposed and enacted. Using a focus on local initiatives from Sydney, Australia’s largest city, the paper documents four key techniques through which retrofitting is being governed – self-governing, holistic, facilitative and educative. The findings suggest that governance gaps remain in attending to the daily life of technologies and the materiality of daily life.     

Open space,house prices,and the tax base

This paper examines the effect of public acquisitions of open space on changes in house prices and the municipal tax base using municipal-level data from New Jersey. We find that open-space expenditures yield a stream of benefits in the future but that any effect of open-space acquisitions on the tax base is immediate. Finally, we find that while higher tax rates are associated with a lower tax base, a larger tax base depresses tax rates.     

Development of house prices in the Netherlands

This contribution concerns the development of prices in the owneroccupied sector in the Netherlands. The analysis focuses on the development over two decades, from 1975 to 1995. That period may be divided into a number of phases of growth and stagnation, as defined by fluctuating house prices. Some explanations for these fluctuations are offered here. These include the influence of regulation by government and other major institutions; demographic developments; developments in the supply of owner-occupied dwellings; developments in a number of economic variables; and the dynamics of the market. Then an attempt is made to estimate how prices will develop in the future. It should be kept in mind that this forecast is based on statistical relations that were calculated with reference to the past. In the event those relations change in the future, the model estimated here would not yield good predictions. Peter Boelhouwer is researcher at the OTB Research Institute for Policy and Technology at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. His research focus has been general housing policy, housing finance and comparative housing research. Johan Conijn is director of the OTB Research Institute for Policy and Technology at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. His research focus has been general housing economics, housing finance, and general housing policy. Paul de Vries is assistant-researcher OTB Research Institute for Policy and Technology at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. His research focus has been building market and statistical analyses.     

Exploring,modelling and predicting spatiotemporal variations in house prices

Hedonic price modelling has long been a powerful tool to estimate house prices in the real estate market. Increasingly, traditional global hedonic price models that largely ignore spatial effects are being superseded by models that deal with spatial dependency and spatial heterogeneity. In addition, many novel methods integrating spatial economics, statistics and geographical information science (GIScience) have been developed recently to incorporate temporal effects into hedonic house price modelling. Here, a local spatial modelling technique, geographically weighted regression (GWR), which accounts for spatial heterogeneity in housing utility functions is applied to a 19-year set of house price data in London (1980–1998) in order to explore spatiotemporal variations in the determinants of house prices. Further, based on the local parameter estimates derived from GWR, a new method integrating GWR and time series (TS) forecasting techniques, GWR–TS, is proposed to predict future local parameters and thus future house prices. The results obtained from GWR demonstrate variations in local parameter estimates over both space and time. The forecasted future values of local estimates as well as house prices indicate that the proposed GWR–TS method is a useful addition to hedonic price modelling.

     

Noise expectations and house prices: the reaction of property prices to an airport expansion

We examine the effects of an airport expansion on the prices of houses and apartments located under the planned flight paths. We focus on the role of expectations of aircraft noise during the expansion of Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport. The publication of the flight paths can be seen as an exogenous event. It provides local residents and potential home buyers with reliable information in a situation that is characterized by uncertainty. The flight paths greatly influence the expectation of the noise level. We find that property listing prices were reduced substantially in the affected areas after the flight paths were published. The loss of value of the affected properties was found to be 9.6 % on average within a slant distance of 3 km from a planned flight path. If the flight altitude is below 1,000 m, the discount is between 11.8 and 12.8 %, whereas for higher flight altitudes, the average decline in prices is estimated to be 8.3 %.     

Immigration in gateway cities: Sydney and Vancouver in comparative perspective

Contemporary international migration shows points of departure from the immigration of the past. First, all continents are now significantly implicated in the transfers of populations. Second, there is immense diversity among immigrant characteristics and human capital, including both legal and illegal status, and ranging from the movement of well-resourced cosmopolitans to the flows of refugees who may well be poverty-stricken and without documentation. Third, the numbers of international migrants are at a very high level. Fourth, destinations are more concentrated than has been the case in recent history, focussed upon large metropolitan centres, or gateway cities, in advanced societies.These are contexts confronting planners on an everyday basis in multicultural gateway cities such as Sydney (Australia) and Vancouver (Canada). Both metropolitan areas share a common economic and cultural history, and their Pacific Rim location has recently strongly affected migration flows as legislative reform opened the boundaries of their nation states to new immigrant origins. While Sydney is a nationally primate city and twice the size of Vancouver, each metropolitan area displays similar processes of economic and cultural transformation.This volume addresses a number of intellectual and planning questions that have ensued. In Chapter 2 we ask to what extent contemporary immigration is reshaping urban spatial structure, requiring new concepts of urban form and new strategies for service provision. The housing dimension of immigrant settlement has been an important preoccupation of planners, and in Chapter 3 we consider such issues as tenure, affordability, house price inflation, land use conflicts, and the globalization of urban housing markets accompanying elevated immigration in gateway cities. The differential response to immigration among different family members has recently been identified, and Chapter 4 addresses the gendering of immigration and women's mobilisation to secure necessary services. An important institution in shaping attitudes about immigration is the media, and Chapter 5 considers its representation of minority groups, including two case studies of media coverage of land use conflicts between immigrants and the long-settled population. We argue that it is local government where immigrants typically encounter the state in the delivery of everyday services, and Chapter 6 considers the multicultural readiness of local governments in Sydney and Vancouver in serving a culturally diverse body of citizens. Finally, in Chapter 7 we offer some concluding remarks on the challenges of physical, social, and multicultural planning in gateway cities.     

Modeling regional house prices in the United Kingdom

In the second half of the 1980s the United Kingdom experienced a widening of house-price differentials between the South and the North, thus providing an extra impetus to the claim of a North-South divide. This paper adopts a broader perspective and examines the view that the pattern of house-price differentials across regions resembles a ripple effect. Long time-series data covering 10 UK regions and various statistical/econometric techniques are used to test the ripple-effect hypothesis. The cumulative evidence seems to conform to the hypothesis. Various explanations of this phenomenon, including interregional migration, are considered.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 30th European Congress, Istanbul, August 1990.     

Development of house prices in the Netherlands: An international perspective

This article deals with the questionwhether it is plausible to assume, on the basis ofexperiences in other countries and general insightsinto the operation of the market for owner-occupiedhousing, that a price correction will take place inthe market for owner-occupied dwellings in theNetherlands or rather that it is reasonable toexpect that the rising trend in real sales prices,which started in the 1980s, will continue steadilyon the same course. On the grounds of thisinformation, we conclude that in the medium term, weshould expect to see a decline in the sales pricesfor dwellings in the Netherlands.     

Governing the Compact City: The Challenges of Apartment Living in Sydney,Australia

This paper addresses the challenges facing the strata sector in Sydney in the context of current Australian metropolitan planning strategies promoting increased urban consolidation. It argues that the current focus on higher density development is vulnerable to challenges of regulation, representation and termination in strata developments. Furthermore, the increasing size and complexity of strata schemes as well as the existence of ageing strata stock are placing pressure on the strata title system in NSW and these problems are likely to escalate as an increasing proportion of the population move into strata. Therefore, it is essential to comprehend the issues facing strata developments if they are to be effectively tackled. The concept of ‘governance’ provides one mechanism for improving this understanding.     

Immigration and Housing in an Emerging Global City, Sydney, Australia

By 2001, 33 per cent of Sydney's population of 4.2 million was born overseas. In the previous 15 years, 38 per cent of all immigrants to Australia settled in Sydney compared to the national population share of 21 per cent. Housing costs are highest in Sydney of any of the metropolitan cities in Australia and Sydney's emergence as a global city affects the housing market and has attracted diverse communities and skilled immigrants. This article presents Australian Bureau of Statistics census data to trace trends in home ownership and tenure among key immigrant groups in Sydney from the post-war era to recent times. It discusses the key factors that influence immigrant progress through the housing market and explores the dynamics of Sydney's residential mosaic.     

The value of trees, water and open space as reflected by house prices in the Netherlands

An attractive environment is likely to influence house prices. Houses in attractive settings will have an added value over similar, less favourably located houses. This effect is intuitively felt, but does it always occur? Which environmental factors make a location an attractive place to live in? The present study explored the effect of different environmental factors on house prices. The research method was the hedonic pricing method, which uses statistical analysis to estimate that part of a price due to a particular attribute. Nearly 3000 house transactions, in eight towns or regions in the Netherlands, were studied to estimate the effect of environmental attributes on transaction prices. Some of the most salient results were as follows. We found the largest increases in house prices due to environmental factors (up to 28%) for houses with a garden facing water, which is connected to a sizeable lake. We were also able to demonstrate that a pleasant view can lead to a considerable increase in house price, particularly if the house overlooks water (8–10%) or open space (6–12%). In addition, the analysis revealed that house price varies by landscape type. Attractive landscape types were shown to attract a premium of 5–12% over less attractive environmental settings.     

City size,prices, and efficiency for individual goods and services

Studies indicate that the cost of living either is the same or rises slightly with the size of cities. This suggests — though it does not imply — that prices of goods and services are as high or higher in larger cities than in smaller cities. But is this really so? And if so, does this imply that costs of distribution (and of the production of services) are higher in bigger cities? The relationship of prices to the sizes of cities is examined for 193 individual goods and services and for 23 broad groups. Price alone does not indicate efficiency. It is well-established that wages for the same work at given skill levels are higher in larger cities. Therefore, the total real inputs may be lower in a larger city, even if price is higher, which indicates better efficiency in larger cities. Study of individual goods and services, and of groupings of them, enables us to go beyond prices to learn which categories are offered more efficiently and which less efficiently in larger cities. We find that for most goods, economic cost decreases rather than increases with city size.     

城市森林住宅开发研究

阐述了城市森林的发展 ,指出城市森林的开发不仅会影响城市的发展 ,也会影响到城市的居住 ,就此提出了森林居住的概念 ;对森林住宅的发展前景以及森林住宅开发过程中应遵循的指导思想进行了分析 ;对森林住宅开发中的能源、水环境、气环境、声环境、光环境、废弃物管理与处置等系统提出了相关的技术规划建议 .     

第二章:港口城市悉尼-地之魂

在当地居民和世界人们的心目中，悉尼及其港口被视为同义词。当初殖民选择此地建立悉尼市就是因为其港口的作用。港口是城市繁荣的基础。     

A review of recent trends in house construction and land prices in Great Britain

Over the last few decades, house prices in the UK have risen at a higher rate than general prices, as measured by, for example, the retail price index. Construction prices, on the other hand, tend to have risen broadly in line with general prices. Assuming the same things are being measured in each case, this implies that, over the period, the price of land, the most significant non-construction element of house prices, has risen at a faster rate than house prices and a much higher rate than construction prices. This paper reviews past price trends and concludes that not only have house prices risen faster than construction prices but also that, as a result, construction prices represent a smaller proportion of house prices. The paper also considers briefly what might be the implications if that trend continued- or if it did not.     

The incomplete privatization of the Dutch housing market: Exploding house prices versus falling house-building output

This paper addresses the coordination problems in the liberalized housing market in the Netherlands during the 1990–2004 period. In particular, the mismatch between the explosion in house prices and the stagnation in house-building activities during the past six years is under investigation. It is argued that there is still a marked discrepancy between the language used in the policy discourse and the supply and demand situation on the Dutch housing market. One could argue that the Dutch government implemented a double-hearted, incomplete privatization. As a result of the mismatch between actual housing policy and market developments, output is stagnating and the housing shortage is growing sharply. The closing section presents some possible means to overcome these problems.     

Land use,travel utility and travel behaviour: An analysis from the perspective of the positive utility of travel

The concept of travel utility is refined by reflecting two positive aspects, derived utility and synergy–intrinsic utility. The refined utility – comprising the positive utility aspects and disutility as represented by trip time – is specified in a model for a comparison with a reference model that is based on the derived demand perspective. The comparison is made by structural equation modelling according to different travel purposes and measures. Notable findings are that land use affects travel behaviour mainly by improving positive utility, which leads to fewer shopping and more leisure trips, while disutility increase, not reduction, complements modal shift for commuting.     

The impact of the residential lead paint disclosure rule on house prices: findings in the American Housing Survey

In an effort to reduce lead paint exposure in old homes, the residential lead paint hazard disclosure rule (Title X) was enacted in 1996 in the USA, which requires house sellers to disclose known lead-based paint hazards to buyers. The policy is designed to induce individuals’ improved maintenance behaviors through environmental information provisions. Minimizing the impact on housing prices is also the key component of the policy; a decline in the price of old homes because of the policy may lead to higher occupancy rates of the targeted low-income groups into lead paint risk homes. To explore the issue, this study examined whether the lead paint disclosure rule lowered values of old houses using the American Housing Survey data from 1993 to 2005 with the repeat sales method. The findings show the policy did not lower prices of old homes, as it intended.