Some empirical results on the nature of the hedonic price function for the urban housing market

Abstract An attempt is made to develop a systematic statistical methodology for the analysis of the urban housing market The standard estimation procedures used for fitting hedonic price functions for the urban housing market are reviewed, and several potentially serious sources of bias are noted. An alternative estimator which capitalizes property values into flows and also searches for the appropriate functional form which avoids these biases is developed. The capitalization rate for owner-occupied housing in 1973 is found to be about 0.03. The magnitudes and seriousness of several of the estimation biases are examined within the context of inappropriate policy decisions which can result from the use of the standard estimators. The importance of neighborhood site characteristics in the determination of local site valuations is also examined and it is found that they explain between 15 and 50% of the standardized variation in site valuations. Further, it is found that these traits are capable of inducing valuation differentials as large as 100% between structurally identical sites.