Data-Driven Regionalization of Housing Markets

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-4-2013

Abstract

This article presents a data-driven framework for housing market segmentation. Local marginal house price surfaces are investigated by means of mixed geographically weighted regression and are reduced to a set of principal component maps, which in turn serve as input for spatial regionalization. The out-of-sample prediction error of a hedonic pricing model is applied to determine a "near-optimal" number of spatially coherent and homogeneous submarkets. The usefulness of this method is demonstrated with a detailed data set for the Austrian housing market. The results provide evidence that submarkets must always be considered, however they are defined, and that the proposed submarket taxonomy on a regional level significantly improves predictive quality compared to (1) a traditional pooled model, (2) a model that uses an ad hoc submarket definition based on administrative units, and (3) a model incorporating an alternative submarket definition on the basis of aspatial k-means clustering. Moreover, it is concluded that the Austrian housing market is characterized by regional determinants and that geography is the most important component determining the house prices. © 2013 Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Annals of the Association of American Geographers

Number

552

First Page

871

Last Page

889

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