House price indexes: an empirical exercise using spatial data analysis.

Abstract

The housing market occupies a central place within any society. Residential property represents the essential parts of most families’ wealth, as well as a substantial part of their monthly expenditure. It also represents a large fraction of private investment, generating significant earnings. However, and despite this importance, the compilation of reliable residential property price indexes (RPPI) is far from satisfactory in Portugal, revealing an important gap in the field of statistical information. The construction of a residential property price index (RPPI) poses particular problems arising from the inherent nature of the object concerned. Considering the gap in Portugal regarding the lack of a sufficiently enlarged database allowing the compilation of reliable RPPIs, this article seeks to contribute to this area, proposing a methodology applied to the urban area of Aveiro and Ílhavo by means of a spatial data analysis.