An analysis of housing location attributes in the inner city of budapest, Hungary, using expert judgements.

Four specific profiles were identifiable. A 'more traditional European' urban sentiment (urbanity) emphasises the physical environment (respondents 5 and 9 above). According to respondent 8 the social dimensions are important too, whereas accessibility is not. A 'more American' segregation sentiment emphasises the social factors (respondents 2, 3, 4 and 6) or the municipality in the sense of a 'Tiebouteffect': the households choose their jurisdiction based on the combination of public expenditures and image--variations in tax rate is however not (yet) reality in Budapest (respondent 7). Finally, when accessibility (and also social) factors are important, the profile is akin to what Kauko (2002, 2003, 2006) found in the Helsinki analysis (respondent 1).

These four general profiles can be elaborated further using the supporting 'in-depth' comments of the nine respondents (almost verbatim from the open interviews when asked about the logic of a certain ranking):

'Traditional urban' (three respondents).

* All districts include good and bad areas. Closeness to Danube matters. (Tangible factor.)

* To some extent the inner part of district VII is still quite popular as it is a 'historical' area. (Intangible factor.)

* Even if the neighbourhood is not renewed, but it is close to the rehabilitated properties it is attractive. Thus, the anticipation of a change towards the better matters. (Intangible factor.)

* Nice physical environment and not having social problems go together. 'Segregation' (four respondents).

* While the social factors are improving with time, if there are 50% Romas in a building people do not move there.

* Social factors are important for the upper classes. However, unlike in the US, negative social externalities such as school district or crime rate are irrelevant here. (Thus it is only about status and possibly a 'sense of community'.)

'Tiebout' (one respondent).

* In general, young families look for cheap alternatives in the inner city, and consider districts IX, VII and XIII.

* The social aid is the best in district VIII.

* According to surveys the district (kerulet) matters to some extent (when moving in, and also when moving out); its image matters more than its policies.

* Buyers from Budapest and elsewhere are two separate groups: the former group knows better about the district image, and therefore avoids district VIII.

'CBD Accessibility' (one respondent).

* It is important to have good accessibility to downtown and other areas with good services.

* Proximity to education services is important for housing choice in this context; young residents choose a temporary dwelling. (This fits socio-demographic housing theory.)

* Not everyone wants a car and then public transport is important.

* With the increase of private cars parking problems have become worse.

* People do not care about the image of the municipality, if the neighbourhood is acceptable--provided they have all the relevant information.

In sum, the four disaggregated profiles above all follow the aggregate profile with regard to the relative importance of the attributes. Social factors was by far the most important attribute overall. The municipality factor, the physical environment and the services were all considered less important attributes. Accessibility was also played down in many of the interviews, which raises some further thoughts, as having a short travel distance to the city centre in general is considered an important attribute for location choice in the literature on mono-centric Western cities.

5. CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

Following the principles of naturalistic generalisations, ones case repertoire is allowed to grow, with the purpose of operational classification. Budapest inner city was analysed by classifying its housing consumer profiles into groups, which may be related to earlier studies from other geographic and institutional circumstances and/or to general theory cases from the literature. Based on these findings, two locational factors matter for the preference formation. First, to avoid Roma concentrations--this is the same for all movers. This finding is not unlike models of social segregation from the US, where the avoidance of ethnic concentrations is a common finding. The second finding, in turn, reflects traditional European urban sentiments: that is to say, the closeness to the city, and living in the densest possible (but nevertheless pleasant) urban environment is appreciated. This finding is much similar to the findings from other European housing market contexts. However, in the Budapest segment in question this is not an issue of public transport, which is good everywhere, but rather about 'nice architecture', properly urban density and the cityscape. Considering the literature, this is hardly surprising, and by no means a new phenomenon--compare for example with Ley's (1986) findings about a 'prourban ethos' in Canadian cities.

Apparently the condition of the dwelling is not as important as the micro-location, i.e. the condition of the block or the building as a whole. On the other hand, the administrative district (kertilet) does not matter that much either, which confirms the prior market based modelling results where the immediate surroundings of the dwelling is considered the key to location choices (see Kauko, 2007). Thus, the most attractive locations are the ones that contain a strong presence of a traditional urban sentiment in the cityscape, or the ones that do not suffer from social dis-amenity influences caused by proximity to ethnic minority concentrations. Besides these attributes, the appropriate area level matters too. That is to say, each target location is considered on a small spatial scale: the building, the block and the immediate vicinity.

An interesting possibility now opens up: we can make a comparison with other studies from a post-communist Eastern European urban context. At least one of the results above raise intriguing thoughts (see Figure 2): CBD accessibility carries less weight than the attributes related to the prestige and environmental attributes of the neighbourhood, and image of the district. Apparently more than a decade of free market has not erased the backwardness of the outer part of the inner city as a residential environment and where a noticeable upgrading has taken place, it will be seen in the expressed choices of housing consumers too. This is potentially a key issue. At least two recent studies on this context corroborate this finding: using regression analysis Raslanas and colleagues (2006) concluded that in Vilnius, Lithuania, CBD accessibility is not an important factor for the price formation of apartments; and using expert judgements, the AHP and a hedonic approach Kryvobokov (2006) found out that in Donetsk, Ukraine the most important value influencing factor is prestige, followed by proximity to positive environmental externalities with scarcity value (in this case parks and water), and only after that by the traditional variable CBD accessibility. That this feature, as a rule, is taken for granted, and therefore neglected, by the residents in Eastern bloc urban context could thus be developed into a testable hypothesis.

Lastly, the methodological findings require some attention. It was noted that the nuanced findings of location specific housing consumption are achieved at the cost of some undoubted and perhaps unavoidable drawbacks, namely the lack in modelling robustness, restrictiveness of the analysis, and the effect of averaging the estimates. Obviously these limits are of concern, if the application is in housing market modelling or real estate valuation, and the benchmark is a hedonic regression model or a quantitative stated preferences model. On the other hand, we may argue against treating the expert elicited AHP approach as a completely quantitative method. After all, the input data--expert interviews--is judgemental by definition. Besides, triangulation with other methods and datasets will to a great extent help in overcoming problems of reliability and validity. Cautiously considered, the real merit of this analysis may be in generating preliminary or confirmatory findings in an environment where little comparable research has been conducted.

Acknowledgement

An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the 13th conference of the European Real Estate Society (ERES) in Weimar, Germany, June 7-10, 2006. 1 wish to thank the audience of the session for a stimulating discussion on the topics covered and issues raised.

REFERENCES

Ball, J. and Srinivasan, V C. (1994) Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process in house selection. Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, 9(1), p. 69-85.

Bender, A., Din, A., Favarger, P., Hoesli, M. and Laakso, J. (1997) An analysis of perceptions concerning the environmental quality of housing in Geneva. Urban Studies, 34(3), p. 503-513.

Bender, A., Din, A., Hoesli, M. and Laakso. J. (1999) Environmental quality perceptions of urban commercial real estate. Journal of Property Investment and Finance, 17(3), p. 280-296.

Bertaud. A. (2006) The spatial structures of Central and Eastern European cities, In Tsenkova, S. and Nedovic-Budic, Z. (eds), The Urban Mosaic of Post-Socialist Europe, Space, Institutions and Policy, Heidelberg: Physica-Verlag, p. 91110.

Cameron, S. (2006) From low demand to rising aspirations: housing market renewal within regional and neighbourhood regeneration policy. Housing Studies, 21(1), p. 3-16.

Daly, J., Gronow. S., Jenkins, D. and Plimmer, F. (2003) Consumer behaviour in the valuation of residential property. A comparative study in the UK, Ireland and Australia. Property Management, 21(5), p. 295-314.

Print Get the Mag Weekly Updates