The impact of the environmental externalities on spatial distribution of real estate values: the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona case

Abstract

This research is in the line of the environmental goods assessment, and it is based on environmental economics, urban and territorial organization. The central hypothesis is that people appreciates the environmental quality when making their residential choice according to their income, tradition and lifestyle. To verify this hypothesis a hedonic price model is proposed, where the dependent variable is the selling price of a set of dwellings located in the metropolitan region  of Barcelona (RMB), and the independent variables are the various factors that influence the formation of this space value, included the environmental quality.

The analysis, detects, in a metropolitan scale, what are the environmental factors that are positively and negatively valued. This information is important, as it is a support for policy making, investment decision making (for housing schemes both private and affordable), risk assessment (for insurance companies) and fiscal policies (property tax, proprietor registry, etc.).

The research defines new lines of urban assessment in a metropolitan scale, furthermore, it detects the influence of urban and natural attributes on housing prices.