The Impact of Micro-Level Influencing Factors on Home Value: A Housing Price-Rent Comparison

The housing sales market in China has flourished and gained considerable interest, while the housing rental market has lagged behind and been ignored over the past two decades. With the acceleration of urbanization, the housing rental demand is rising rapidly. Exploring and comparing the influencing factors on housing sale prices and rental prices has significance for sustainable urban planning and management. Using house purchase transaction and rent transaction data in 2017, as well as the average housing price and rent data in 2016 in Beijing, China, this paper compares the spatial distribution and it employs the hedonic price model and quantile regression model to quantify the average and distributional effects of micro-level influencing factors on housing prices and housing rents. Results show that housing prices and housing rents both have a decentralized distribution with multiple centers, but rents of residential communities with high housing prices may not necessarily be high. Both homeowners and renters prefer properties with good structural, locational, and neighborhood characteristics, as well as a good school attendance zone, whereas they still differ in terms of preferences. Homeowners prefer a higher-quality living environment. Renters are more concerned with proximity to an employment center and public transit convenience. Moreover, the price premium of school quality for homeowners exceeds the premium for renters. Higher-priced homeowners or renters differ in the preferences from lower-priced homeowners or renters. Higher-priced homeowners and higher-priced renters are more willing to live in property with a larger number of bedrooms, proximity to a major employment center, park, or school, as well as a location in a school attendance zone with higher school quality.