Price Formation in Real Estate Markets

Sammanfattning: This thesis includes an introductory chapter and four individual papers. The papers are held together by concepts associated with price formation in real estate markets, differentiated goods and the local character of land and housing markets. The first two papers focus on the markets for land and agricultural property and the two succeeding studies on housing markets. The first study examines regional variations of Swedish agricultural land prices. The associated empirical model follows the form of earlier literature in testing the influence of expected returns from the current agricultural use of land and the potential for non-agricultural use on prices. The use of market transacted land and the inclusion of decoupled income support to farmers, among a set of agricultural and non-agricultural factors, distinguishes this study from earlier empirical work.The second paper relates to the first by its focus on decoupled income support, but here the analysis extends to the micro level and to the study of price formation in the market for agricultural property. The study applies a spatial multilevel model to study variations in price determinants across and within local and regional markets.The third paper is devoted to the analysis of housing prices and their relation to open landscape amenities. The spatial analysis employs two geographical databases containing single-family home sales and preserved open spaces. In order to address the local character of urban housing markets and intraurban heterogeneity in amenity valuations the study applies a geographically weighted regression approach.The last paper focuses on the market for second homes with a particular emphasis on urban-rural interrelations. The paper is motivated by a growing demand for natural amenities and by the awareness that urban areas are becoming increasingly attractive markets for second homes.