Effect of Hierarchical Parish System on Portuguese Housing Rents

Sofia Vale,Felipa De Mello-Sampayo

doi:10.3390/su13020455

Sofia Vale, Felipa De Mello-Sampayo

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13020455

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Jan 6, 2021
Citations: 2	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa

Abstract

This manuscript analyzes an inter-parish housing rents gradient with respect to surrounding parishes. Using data on housing rents for 4049 Portuguese parishes in 278 municipalities, the paper explores the spatial patterns of housing rents using the geographically weighted regression (GWR) methodology. The housing rents can be explained by socio-economic factors comprising the effects of unemployment, sustainability, social diversity, elderly dependency, and population density. The proportion of overcrowded dwellings reflecting how poor living conditions affect housing rents was also included in the spatial analysis. On the structural side, characteristics of the dwellings were also included such as the area of the home and the number of other homes available in the parishes. Locational factors reflect households’ valuation for access to other parishes. In order to capture location characteristics, besides considering mobility within municipalities, the GWR allowed using distances to nearby parishes, i.e., parish hierarchy distance effect. The results suggest that the Portuguese rental housing market exhibits a heterogeneous pattern across the territory, displaying spatial variability and a hierarchical space pattern as a consequence of its locational attributes.

Highlights

The factors that affect housing rental fees and prices have been and continue to be scrutinized in the literature
This paper considers structural, locational, and neighborhood features of houses distributed across Portuguese parishes in order to investigate the effect that distance between them can have in housing rents, contributing to the literature that studies how spatial effects and geography matter in explaining the behavior of housing rents
The present study contributes to the research on housing rents by examining and comparing the spatial distribution of housing rents in continental Portugal, using data collected at the parish level, the smallest local administrative unit

Summary

Introduction

The factors that affect housing rental fees and prices have been and continue to be scrutinized in the literature. Home values vary across space, whereby those located in large cities tend to be more expensive than those located in small towns, and within large cities, there are differences, with the center regions typically being more expensive than the suburbs [1,2,3,4]. This space hierarchy can be seen at a more micro level when the territory is institutionally organized in small units with autonomous administration, as is the case in Portugal. The existence of public infrastructures such as schools and hospitals and all features that can be specific to the local administrative unit [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion