Towards increasing residential market transparency: Mapping local housing prices and dynamics

Abstract

This article attempts to use spatial maps as a way of presenting additional information about the phenomena occurring in the housing market. In our opinion, spatial maps may facilitate understanding and provide more detailed information, which undoubtedly should increase the transparency of the housing market. The study used 12,219 transactions of apartments in Poznan´ in the years 2013–2017. General principles of price visualization activity and housing market dynamics were established in this study. The map of prices may reflect the location values determined by the quality of the urban infrastructure, distance from specific locations, and environmental factors. Market activity maps reveal areas where the market is dynamically developing, while information on trends in the number of transactions and price changes may demonstrate the growing or declining attractiveness of areas. The research is based on a model of hedonic regression in the form of ordinary least squares (OLS), quantile regression (QR), and geographically weighted regression (GWR). The maps presented should increase the transparency of the residential market (e.g., by providing more detailed information). However, one should bear in mind the limitations in the use of these methods resulting from a small number of transactions in a thin market.