Socio-Economic Disaster Recovery Captured by Big Housing Market Data

The goal of this paper is to examine the possibility of using big data in housing market as one of socio-economic recovery indicators. Disaster recovery is a complex process and should be captured via multiple angles. Here, we explore the possibility of using online big data in real estate to detect one of socio-economic recovery activities. This study focuses on big data because its characteristics, such as timeliness, have the feasibility of complementing the traditional socio-economic recovery indicators, such as official statistics and questionnaire surveys, which are not published in a real-time way. By investigating a case of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, the results of this study indicate that there was an excess demand for houses located near the most tsunami-damaged zones since several months after the tsunami. Because housing is one of the key factors for disaster-affected people's life recovery, the analysis gives evidence to support that the big data in housing market have the possibility of being used as a proxy of one of the socio-economic recovery. The results of this paper would be insightful for both academicians and practitioners in disaster-related fields to recognize and gauge disaster-affected community's recovery situations in a timely manner.