Rental Market Research Articles

COVID-19 and aggravated housing precarity for international students: an Australian case study

Housing experience of international students has attracted increasing academic attention in recent years. Australia’s large international student population is largely reliant on lightly-regulated private rental housing, a market sector subject to extreme turbulence during COVID-19. However, while aspects of Australian student housing stress during the pandemic have been already investigated, the specific issues affecting a substantial component of the broader cohort have yet to be examined. Around 130,000 Australian international students were stranded overseas for two years (2020-22) by international border closures. Their experiences cast new light on vulnerable renter precarity in lightly-regulated markets. Via an online survey and in-depth interviews, this paper examines the challenges posed for stranded international students in terms of their Australian tenancies, and how these were handled. Three main findings emerge: 1) uncertainty deriving from travel restrictions reduced student bargaining power in the rental market; 2) inability to terminate leases, unfavourable rent negotiation outcomes and welfare exclusion caused serious financial stress; and 3) widespread subletting exposed students to eviction and exploitation. These findings foreground important downsides of Australia’s long-existing neoliberal university regime and inadequate student housing provision that endanger the fundamental purposes of higher education, and risk tarnishing Australia’s reputation as an international student destination.

Apartment Rental Market in Border Cities of Poland and Ukraine

This article is a contribution to the research that addresses the levels of apartment rental costs in Poland and Ukraine. The city of Rzeszów in Poland and Lviv in Ukraine – voivodeship capital cities that are located about 100 km from the Polish-Ukrainian border – were selected for the analysis. The purpose of the research is to compare the rental costs of apartments and to determine the correlation between the average rental rate and location of an apartment in the city as well as its floor, area, and residential standard. The experimental part of the article presents research results based on analyzing more than 300 apartment rental offers in the Rzeszów and Lviv housing market at the turn of 2022–2023. The possibility of renting an apartment results from the financial capacity of potential tenants, which is unavailable to people with low incomes; hence, the study also analyzed market rental rates in the context of the minimum wage in Poland and Ukraine in 2022.

The new ‘lettings agent’s window’: interface design and discrimination on online rental platforms

ABSTRACT Accessing the private rented sector is now an almost exclusively online activity. In the UK 96% of renters found their property from one of the four leading online rental platforms: Rightmove, SpareRoom, Zoopla or Gumtree. How the interfaces of these platforms are designed can impact on access to the private rented sector and facilitate (or minimise) discrimination against users. This paper proposes a typology of interface design choices in online rental platforms, examining their role in structuring content, sorting existing content, and facilitating user interactions. Through a comparative analysis of 3,336 listings on a leading rental platform before-and-after changes to its interface, the paper reveals that even minor design alterations can significantly influence market accessibility for recipients of housing benefit and therefore reduce or worsen discrimination against certain user groups. The findings offer insights into combating discrimination in the digital rental market and provides a typology for analysing interface design choices at play on online rental platforms.

Optimal distinctiveness of short-term rental property design

The short-term rental market remains highly competitive, requiring that hosts should identify effective strategies to position their products for desirable performance. This study investigates the optimal balance beyond dyadic choice between differentiating from or conforming to competitors, in the dimensions of properties’ functional and aesthetic design. We hypothesize U-shaped distinctiveness-performance relationships considering high legitimacy pressure and low strategy effectiveness in the short-term rental context. Moreover, the moderating effects of factors including online review volume and listing age are examined. Analyzing a sample of 99,757 Airbnb listings in Texas, the findings reveal different patterns of product positioning between functionality and aesthetics. The moderate degree of distinctiveness in functionalities leads to the worst performance while in aesthetics generating the best outcome. This study contributes to the hospitality literature by introducing and testing optimal distinctiveness within the short-term rental market. The findings also provide positioning guidance for short-term rental listings under different conditions.

Value of Farm Data in Farmland Rental Markets

Value of Farm Data in Farmland Rental Markets

Airbnb and rental markets: Evidence from Berlin

We exploit the differential responses of Airbnb hosts to two distinct policy interventions in Berlin to shed light on the optimal design of policies targeting short-term rental platforms to mitigate rental market inflation. The first intervention, which affected commercial listings, significantly impacted long-term rental markets, unlike the second intervention, which mainly affected non-commercial listings. Leveraging these policy variations, we estimate the marginal impact of Airbnb on rental supply and rents. Each additional commercial Airbnb listing displaces 0.23 to 0.37 rental units and increases rent per square meter by 1.3 to 2.4 percent. This underscores the importance of targeting commercial listings when regulating short-term rental markets.

A Liveability Framework for Medium to High Density Social and Affordable Housing: An Australian Housing Case Study

ABSTRACT The private rental market costs are placing a burden on household budgets, thus significant pressure is on governments and private housing organisations to supply more social and affordable housing solutions. This research evaluates the key elements of medium- and high-density liveable and accessible social and affordable urban housing precincts. Focusing on investigations into an Australian housing case study, the authors establish a liveability framework to improve understanding of whole-of-life needs. Through a comprehensive literature review, a case study and a series of in-depth interviews with key stakeholders from the housing sector five key elements were identified. These key elements include: (1) Liveability, (2) Accessibility, (3) Value equation, (4) Regulatory and policy environment, and (5) Adoption and overcoming barriers. The liveability framework will form the basis of a set of quality standards that can be used to guide precinct planning, design development and management.

The Investigation of Rental Market Rent Models Based on Machine Learning

The Investigation of Rental Market Rent Models Based on Machine Learning

Factor Analysis of Office Rent in the Kuala Lumpur City Centre Area

The office rental market often relates to good investment opportunities since it draws a lot of capital but comes with a substantial return. It somehow possessed a complicated market structure, and the heterogeneity of office buildings has become a challenge for investors and real estate practitioners to analyse office rentals data. This research seeks to analyse an office rental factor analysis based on data evidence from the Kuala Lumpur city centre, using two different approaches: Manual SPSS and AutoModel RapidMiner. Quantitative data, obtained through secondary data of office rental transactions, consist of a data set that includes 542 office rental transactions from 2015 to 2021. The results from the two different approaches were significantly related by studying the correlation value achieved through the AutoModel and Spearman rank correlation. The three determinants, namely green certificates, building appearance and design, and amenities and in-house services, can be identified as strong determinants. The research findings also provide support for the use of both manual and automated approaches in factor analysis and suggest that they can be used interchangeably to achieve similar results. This research allowed for a more comprehensive understanding of the office rental market in Kuala Lumpur, and provided real estate practitioners with useful insights into factors that influence office rental prices.

Local rental market dynamics and homelessness rates among unaccompanied youths, single adults, and people in families

ABSTRACT This study examines how local rental market factors differentially influence community-level homelessness rates among unaccompanied youths, single adults, and people in families with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s point-in-time estimates in January 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States. The results from seemingly unrelated regressions for 270 metropolitan Continua of Care suggest that higher community-level rental vacancy rates were associated with lower homelessness rates among people in families but not among single adults and unaccompanied youths. Further, higher community-level crowded rates in rental units were associated with higher homelessness rates among single adults and unaccompanied youths but not among people in families. These findings suggest the differential association between rental market dynamics and homelessness among the homeless subgroups should inform subgroup-specific policy interventions and investment strategies.

Are Hedonic Models Really Quality-Adjusted? The Role of Apartment Quality in Hedonic Models of Housing Rental Market

Abstract In micro-level data concerning the housing market, the apartment quality may be signaled via textual statements or the attached descriptions/photos. It may be done using hard information related to the easier-to-measure structural characteristics or soft information related to the apartment condition and design - soft quality. This paper checks whether the choice of the approach to handling the issue of soft quality of apartments influences the properties of hedonic models and the course of hedonic rent indices. The study shows that hedonic models that account for soft quality have better statistical properties than those without soft-quality-related variables. Among them, the models that include the information on quality extracted from descriptions of apartments prove to be the best. Still, considerable differences in the indicated course of hedonic rent indices have not been detected. However, the paper concludes that utilizing information on apartments’ soft quality may be crucial to understanding the market adjustment process to economic shocks. It has been proven that the price reaction of the Poznań (Poland) rental market to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian aggression on Ukraine has been diversified in the quality-related market segments.

Neither housing nor hotel

One of the many impacts of the Covid pandemic on Canadian cities was the complete collapse of short-term rental (STR) markets, as long-distance travel nearly vanished for more than a year. Many dedicated STRs shifted back to the long-term rental market, but others remained on STR platforms such as Airbnb but with minimum stays of one month or more—a land use we describe as “medium-term rentals” (MTRs). This paper provides a planning analysis of online-platform-mediated MTRs in Canadian cities and their housing-market, land-use, and regulatory implications. First, we identify and explore the regulatory grey zone inhabited by MTRs, which appear to be neither standard residential tenancies nor short-term tourist accommodations. Second, the paper provides a brief empirical overview of the emergence of MTRs during and after the Covid pandemic in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Third, the paper uses a policy case study of situations in which Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board has been asked to adjudicate non-standard tenancies to establish whether there is a planning basis for distinguishing medium-term rentals from other tenancy types. The paper concludes by identifying a key planning principle which could allow Canadian municipalities to pull MTRs out of the regulatory grey zone: regulating type of stay instead of length of stay.

Platform labour on the margins and beyond the digital realm: Mapping the landscape of “platform-generated labour” in the digitally mediated short-term rental market.

This paper explores the landscape of labour in the platform economy and, more specifically, the ways local economic activities and actors are exposed to pressures of platformisation, building on the case of the Airbnb platform and the digitally-mediated short-term rental (STR) market in Athens. Conceptualising STR networks as infrastructural assemblages and through a qualitative study building on 27 semi-structured interviews with relevant actors, I focus on: tracing the wide range of workers who undertake essential tasks, the employment statuses, compensations and modes of engagement of workers, restrictions and gender-dimensions, as well as the content and attributes of STR-related work. My main argument is built around the notion of ‘platform worker’ and the need to expand it beyond workers that are directly related to the platforms, in order to include the on-site labour force upon which the creation and everyday operation of broader platform ecosystems and related infrastructure are depended.

The Size of the Rental Housing Segment in Poland and its Main Determinants

Abstract Our research into the fast-growing segment of the rental market fits perfectly with the current wave of excitement. In this research, we attempt to answer a fundamental question: how large is the rental segment in Poland? To our surprise, the answer to this key question remains wrapped in mystery, with an absence of continuous studies disclosing its true size. Undaunted, in this paper we took up the challenge to develop a method that would give us a clear answer. Using Eurostat statistics, we develop a methodological framework for estimating the size of the rental segment. We acknowledge that Eurostat data possesses certain limitations, yet serves as a valuable resource for fulfilling our goal under the proposed methodology. In our approach, we determine the size of Polish rental segment between 2007 and 2021. To validate our findings, we dived into the complex relationship between the size of the rental segment and households. Applying linear regression, we sought to unravel the main determinants influencing not only the overall housing market but also the dimensions of the puzzling rental segment. The proposed method proves to be successful and answers the research question. However, it is important to emphasize that the presented results are estimates that give an impression of the elusive size of the rental housing segment and not exact measurements. Moreover, the flexibility of the proposed methodology is promising and allows similar studies to be conducted in different geographical contexts.

The legacy of partible inheritance on farmland fragmentation: Evidence from Austria

Partible inheritance is considered an important driver in the fragmentation of farmland use and ownership, but this lacks empirical evidence. We combine parcel-level data on land use and land ownership with historical information on inheritance traditions from Eastern Austria where partible and impartible inheritance coexisted. We use multiple regression analysis with coarsened exact matching to show that farmland is more fragmented in partible inheritance regions. Despite partially consolidating their farmland via the rental market, farms in these areas own less land, farm smaller and more scattered parcels, and have more landowners than farms in regions with an impartible inheritance tradition. Policy makers should thus ensure functioning land markets and facilitate land consolidation measures to counteract the legacies of historical fragmentation processes.

PROPERTY MARKET AND THE FINANCIAL SECTOR: EXPLORING MALAYSIA'S SCENARIO IN TIMES OF CRISIS

Amidst the global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the financial sector faces an uncertain path due to various policy measures. This paper delves into the spillover effects of the relationship between Malaysia's property market and the financial sector. Using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) cointegration bound test, utilizing time-series data from Q12009 to Q32021, the empirical findings reveal a notable spillover effect of the pandemic on the relationship between the property market and financial sector development in Malaysia. Moreover, the marginal impact of the housing market and rental market on the development of the financial sector is elucidated by factors such as risk-averse behaviour, slower GDP growth, and government intervention through policy initiatives. It is crucial to consider this scenario as a precautionary measure, highlighting the potential for crisis prevention, despite the expansionary financial and monetary measures adopted in response to the pandemic-induced crisis.

Housing, Distribution, and Welfare

AbstractHousing is a long‐lived asset whose value is sensitive to variations in expectations of long‐run growth rates and interest rates. When a large fraction of households has leverage, housing price fluctuations cause large‐scale redistribution and consumption volatility. We find that a practical way to insure the young and the poor from the housing market fluctuations is through a well‐functioning rental market. In practice, homeownership subsidies keep the rental market small and the housing cycle affects aggregate consumption. Removing homeownership subsidies hurts old homeowners, while leverage limits hurt young homeowners.

Enhancing our understanding of short-term rental activity: A daily scrape-based approach for Airbnb listings.

The growth of the online short-term rental market, facilitated by platforms such as Airbnb, has added to pressure on cities' housing supply. Without detailed data on activity levels, it is difficult to design and evaluate appropriate policy interventions. Up until now, the data sources and methods used to derive activity measures have not provided the detail and rigour needed to robustly carry out these tasks. This paper demonstrates an approach based on daily scrapes of the calendars of Airbnb listings. We provide a systematic interpretation of types of calendar activity derived from these scrapes and define a set of indicators of listing activity levels. We exploit a unique period in short-term rental markets during the UK's first COVID-19 lockdown to demonstrate the value of this approach.

Rental market structure and housing dynamics: An interacted panel VAR investigation

AbstractThis article uses the interacted panel VAR method to analyse how institutional factors related to the structure of the housing market explain cross‐country heterogeneity in responses to macroeconomic shocks. While the previous literature focused on the stabilizing role of the mortgage market, we argue that housing tenure structure also plays an important role. In the baseline, we use data for nine OECD members to investigate how the size and regulations of the rental market affect the response of the housing market to interest rate shocks. As a reference, we also conduct a similar analysis with the mortgage market structure as the institutional factor. We find that both the rental market size and maximum loan‐to‐value ratios are important in explaining heterogeneity of housing market responses to macroeconomic shocks.

Open Banking and data reassurance: the case of tenant referencing in the UK

ABSTRACT The promise of Open Banking (OB), as implemented in the UK, has been that consumers are no longer passive data producers but can also use and derive value from their personal data. OB has been applied predominantly to financial decision-making, payments and borrowing, and most of the existent literature has focused on its adoption in financial services. In this article, we examine its off-label adoption in tenant referencing, a sector rather neglected and that raises specific questions of distribution to essential goods. We draw on qualitative research from a research project examining algorithmic risk profiling in housing, comprising in-depth interviews with landlords, letting agents, tenants, referencing companies and other stakeholders in the private rented sector (PRS). Taking into account simultaneously consumers and professionals’ perspectives, we argue that OB adoption in tenant referencing is a calculative practice embraced due to offering a more streamlined application process, having a reassuring interface design and institutional validation. Such technical and social elements overlap on the specific power relations of the rental market that make in some situations OB less as an ‘opt-in’ option and more like a default setting when tenants feel that they do not have too much control over what data they want to share.