Determinants of the Price of Housing in the Province of Alicante (Spain): Analysis Using Quantile Regression

Abstract

After almost a decade of crisis, the housing market in Spain shows significant signs of recovery, with increases in both the average price and the number of sales transactions. Housing is the main asset for the majority of households, and it also has the most resources devoted to it, thus, when it comes to buying a residence, people do not only look at the asset’s intrinsic characteristics, but also consider other particularities such as the neighbourhood, accessibility to services, availability of public transport or adequate funding. The study aimed to analyse and quantify the relationship that exists between the asking price of second-hand housing on the market in Alicante and the attributes that characterise them. This was done using a multivariate analysis to estimate a hedonic pricing model by ordinary least squares and a quantile regression to analyse the impact of the characteristics in different price ranges. The results show the segmentation of the prices in the Alicante market, with higher prices in the northern coastal area over the southern and inland comarcas.