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The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyze volatility properties of the house price returns of Turkey and Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir provinces over the period of July 2007-June 2014.

The paper uses conditional variance models, namely, ARCH, GARCH and E-GARCH. As the supportive approach for the discussions, we also use correlation analysis and qualitative inputs.

Empirical findings suggest several points. First, city/country-level house price return volatility series display volatility clustering pattern and therefore volatilities in house price returns are time varying. Second, it seems that there were high (excess) and stable volatility periods during observation term. Third, a significant economic event may change country/city-level volatilities. In this context, the biggest and relatively persistent shock was the lagged negative shocks of global financial crisis. More importantly, short-lived political/economic shocks have not significant impacts on house price return volatilities in Turkey, Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. Fourth, however, house price return volatilities differ across geographic areas, volatility series may show some co-movement pattern. Fifth, volatility comparison across cities reveal that Izmir shows more excess volatility cases, Ankara recorded the highest volatility point and Istanbul and national series show lower and insignificant volatilities.

The study uses maximum available data and focuses on some house price return volatility patterns. The first implication of the findings is that micro/macro dimensions of house price return volatilities should be carefully analyzed to forecast upside/downside risks of house price returns. Second, defined volatility clustering pattern implies that rate of return of housing investment may show specific patterns in some periods and volatile periods may result in some large losses in the returns. Third, model results generally suggest that however data constraint is a major problem, market participants should analyze regional idiosyncrasies during their decision-making in housing portfolio management. Fourth, because house prices are not sensitive to relatively less structural shocks, housing may represent long-term investment instrument if it provides satisfactory hedging from inflation.

The evidences and implications would be useful for housing market participants aiming to manage/use externalities of housing price movements. From a practical contribution perspective, the study provides a tool that will allow measuring first time of the return volatility patterns of house prices in Turkey and her three biggest provinces. Local level analysis for Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir provinces, as the globally fastest growing cities, would be found specifically interesting by international researchers and practitioner.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate whether the leading argument of construction firms, which have been active in the mass production of housing for the past 10 years in Istanbul, that in addition to the features of the house itself, the position of the house in the city, in other words its location, the new lifestyles the house offers and the social reinforcements the house provides are of great significance is valid or not. This was done by analyzing the contents of the advertising copies of houses present in the printed media.

In this study, the printed advertising copies of the projects realized by the mass housing construction firms which have carried out at least six projects in Istanbul housing market, have been analyzed and assessed by “content analysis”, one of the qualitative research methods of social sciences. As it can be observed from the results of the analysis, the house, while being regarded as a product and marketed via its features, also has become a product presented to the consumer as a result of its position in the city, in other words its location, the new lifestyles it offers and the social reinforcements it provides.

As this study has demonstrated, marketing strategies based on attracting the attention of the customer by making use of means of communication are also valid for housing in Istanbul housing market. Housing is marketed not only according to its features as a product but also according to the urban area where it is situated, new lifestyles and social reinforcements it presents. In this marketing process, the features of the housing itself; its size, construction technology, quality of the fine materials, earthquake resistance, etc. as well as the urban area where the housing is situated, the location of it, opportunities of infrastructure and superstructure of the housing become the foregrounded arguments in the advertising copies.

This study is that, as a requirement of modern-day marketing, the consumption relation of the consumer to the house is not simply based on the features of the house, that modern-day marketing tries to capture the attention of the consumer via the position of the house in the city (location), which is the equivalent of the other symbolic values associated with the house, the lifestyles it presents and the social reinforcements it provides.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze empirically major factors that affect housing prices in Istanbul, Turkey using the classification and regression tree (CART) approach.

The data set was collected from various internet pages of real estate agencies during June 2007. The CART approach was then applied to derive main results and to make implications with regard to the housing market in Istanbul, Turkey.

The CART results indicate that sizes, elavators, existance of security, existance of central heating units and existance of view are the most important variables crucially affecting housing prices in Istanbul. The average price of houses in Istanbul was found to be 373,372.36 New Turkish Liras. The average size of a house was 138.37 m². The average age of houses is 15.07 years old with the average number of rooms being 3.11. The average number of baths is 1.43 and average number of toilets is 1.22. Only 5 percent of homes have storage space, 45 percent of homes have parking space, 64 percent of homes are heated with furnace, whereas only 29 percent of homes are used central heating system. Among the 31 variables employed in this study, it was concluded size, elavator, security, central heating unit and view are the most important factors that have impact on housing prices in housing market in Istanbul.

Future research and analysis of housing market in Istanbul and in Turkey can benefit from the method used in this study and findings derived from this research to come up with more general model(s) to include more houses in a wide range of regions in Turkey to analyze the determinants of housing prices in Turkey in general.

Examining housing prices using the CART model is relatively new in the field of housing economics. Additionally, this study is the first to use the CART model to analyze housing market in Istanbul and in Turkey and derive valuable housing policies to be used by the authorities.

The purpose of this paper is to review the housing sector of Turkey and present the housing development strategies developed by government enterprises for the urban poor in Turkey as successful examples.

The methodology of the paper is descriptive. First of all, the literature on housing finance systems and sources of housing finance are stated. Then, the paper reviews housing finance systems applied in Turkey in the past to solve housing problems. Later, it describes current housing strategy to solve housing problems of low- and middle-income groups and also presents this strategy as a successful model to other countries. Moreover, mortgage law and the current situation of the Turkish housing sector are discussed within the study.

As a result of economic normalization achieved after 2002, mortgage loans extended by commercial banks have increased in Turkey. Besides, governmental institutions, such as Housing Development Administration of Turkey (HDAT) and Istanbul Public Housing Corporation (KIPTAS), apply very extensive projects to allow low- and middle-income groups to have their dwellings. In 2007, the Turkish Parliament enacted mortgage law and defined rules and actors of the mortgage sector. However, as a consequence of economic deterioration in the world economy, mortgage loan receivables-backed securities could not be issued to public yet. Public issuance of mortgage loan receivables-backed securities in the future are expected to direct more long-term funds to the housing sector and also to provide an additional investment instrument for the individual and institutional investors.

The housing production and finance models developed by the HDAT and KIPTAS can be good models for the solution of housing problems of urban poor in other countries.

This paper aims to explore the impact of a recent earthquake activity on house prices and their spatial distribution in the Istanbul housing market.

The paper uses a multi-level approach within an event study framework to model changes in the pattern of house prices in Istanbul. The model allows the isolation of the effects of earthquake risk and explores the differential impact in different submarkets in two study periods – one before (2007) and one after (2012) recent earthquake activity in the Van region, which although in Eastern Turkey served to alter the perceptions of risk through the wider geographic region.

The analysis shows that there are variations in the size of price discounts in submarkets resulting from the differential influence of a recent earthquake activity on perceived risk of damage. The model results show that the spatial impacts of these changes are not transmitted evenly across the study area. Rather it is clear that submarkets at the cheaper end of the market have proportionately larger negative impacts on real estate values.

The robustness of the models would be enhanced by the addition of further spatial levels and larger data sets.

The methods introduced in this study can be used by real estate agents, valuers and insurance companies to help them more accurately assess the likely impacts of changes in the perceived risk of earthquake activity (or other environmental events such as flooding) on the formation of house prices in different market segments.

The application of these methods is intended to inform a fairer approach to setting insurance premiums and a better basis for determining policy interventions and public investment designed to mitigate potential earthquake risk.

The paper represents an attempt to develop a novel extension of the standard use of hedonic models in event studies to investigate the impact of natural disasters on real estate values. The value of the approach is that it is able to better capture the granularity of the spatial effects of environmental events than the standard approach.

This paper aims to examine the convergence pattern of residential house prices in a panel of 55 major cities in Turkey over the period between 2010 and 2018 and to investigate the determinants of convergence club formations.

The authors applied the log t-test to identify the convergence clubs and estimated ordered logit model to determine the key drivers.

The results suggest that there are five convergence clubs and confirm the heterogeneity of the Turkish housing market. Istanbul, the commercial capital, and Mugla, an attractive tourist destination, are at the top of the housing market and followed by the cities located in the western part, particularly along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey. Moreover, the ordered logit model results point out that the differences in employment rate, climate, population density and having a metropolitan municipality play a significant role in determining convergence club membership.

Large-scale policy measures aiming to increase employment opportunities in rural cities of central and eastern provinces and providing lower land prices and property taxes in the metropolitan cities of Turkey can help mitigate some of the divergence in the house prices across cities.

The novelty of this study lies in employing a new data set at the city level containing 55 cities in Turkey, which is by far the largest in terms of city coverage among emerging market economies to implement the log t-test. It also contributes to the literature on city-specific determinants of convergence club formation in the case of an emerging economy.

This paper examines the main drives of encouraging Iranian investors in the Turkish real estate market, focusing on the interface between push factors and pull factors that drive them abroad.

This paper examines the main drives of encouraging Iranian investors in the Turkish real estate market, focusing on the interface between push factors and pull factors that drive them abroad. For this purpose, the trend of housing price growth in Iran and Turkey was compared. The review of the 11-year trend of rates shows that housing prices in both countries have been continuously rising, and these prices have undoubtedly experienced increasing shocks in Iran. For further analysis, 13 main variables leading to the repulsion of investment in Iran's housing market and 15 variables shaping the attractiveness of investment in Turkey were identified in this sector. Thirty experts subsequently ranked the significant variables based on a closed-end questionnaire using quantitative strategic planning matrix. Examining housing investment elasticity in Turkey also shows that “Turkey's economic stability compared to neighboring countries” and “acquiring Turkish citizenship through real estate investment” are among the most important variables. On the other hand, the pressure variables of housing investment in Iran were “decrease in the value of the Iranian currency in recent years,” “currency price fluctuations” and “severe fluctuations and instability in the Iranian housing market.”

Examining housing investment elasticity in Turkey also shows that “Turkey's economic stability compared to neighboring countries” and “acquiring Turkish citizenship through real estate investment” are among the most important variables. On the other hand, the pressure variables of housing investment in Iran were “decrease in the value of the Iranian currency in recent years,” “currency price fluctuations” and “severe fluctuations and instability in the Iranian housing market.”

From a theoretical standpoint, foreign investment is in support of Turkey and harmful to Iran because the Turkish government is bolstering investment attractiveness to bring increased capital inflows into this country. Practically speaking, Turkey has aimed to create a rational framework for investors by strengthening and changing its economic system, as well as amending existing constitutions in this domain. Nevertheless, Iran resists any changes in its economic system and legislation. Therefore, a wide range of attractiveness and repulsion variables has led to the migration of Iranian investors to Turkey. In the present study, such variables are illuminated.

This study aims to examine the impact of some real variables such as real effective exchange rates, real mortgage rates, real money supply, real construction cost index and housing sales on the real housing prices.

This study uses a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model in the monthly period of 2010:1–2021:10.

The real effective exchange rate has a positive and symmetric effect. The decreasing effect of negative changes in real money supply on real housing prices is higher than the increasing effect of positive changes. Only positive changes in the real construction cost index have an increasing and statistically significant effect on real house prices, while only negative changes in housing sales have a small negative sign and a small increasing effect on housing prices. The fact that the positive and negative changes in real mortgage rates are negative and positive, respectively, indicates that both have a reducing effect on real housing prices.

This study suggests the first NARDL model that investigates the asymmetric effects on real housing prices instead of nominal housing prices for Turkey. In addition, the study is the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to examine the effects of the five real variables on real housing prices.

The purpose of this study is to compare the predictive performance of the hedonic multivariate regression model with the probabilistic neural network (PNN)-based general regression neural network (GRNN) model of housing prices in “Pune-India.”

Data on 211 properties across “Pune city-India” is collected. The price per square feet is considered as a dependent variable whereas distances from important landmarks such as railway station, fort, university, airport, hospital, temple, parks, solid waste site and stadium are considered as independent variables along with a dummy for amenities. The data is analyzed using a hedonic type multivariate regression model and GRNN. The GRNN divides the entire data set into two sets, namely, training set and testing set and establishes a functional relationship between the dependent and target variables based on the probability density function of the training data (Alomair and Garrouch, 2016).

While comparing the performance of the hedonic multivariate regression model and PNN-based GRNN, the study finds that the output variable (i.e. price) has been accurately predicted by the GRNN model. All the 42 observations of the testing set are correctly classified giving an accuracy rate of 100%. According to Cortez (2015), a value close to 100% indicates that the model can correctly classify the test data set. Further, the root mean square error (RMSE) value for the final testing for the GRNN model is 0.089 compared to 0.146 for the hedonic multivariate regression model. A lesser value of RMSE indicates that the model contains smaller errors and is a better fit. Therefore, it is concluded that GRNN is a better model to predict the housing price functions. The distance from the solid waste site has the highest degree of variable senstivity impact on the housing prices (22.59%) followed by distance from university (17.78%) and fort (17.73%).

The study being a “case” is restricted to a particular geographic location hence, the findings of the study cannot be generalized. Further, as the objective of the study is restricted to just to compare the predictive performance of two models, it is felt appropriate to restrict the scope of work by focusing only on “location specific hedonic factors,” as determinants of housing prices.

The study opens up a new dimension for scholars working in the field of housing prices/valuation. Authors do not rule out the use of traditional statistical techniques such as ordinary least square regression but strongly recommend that it is high time scholars use advanced statistical methods to develop the domain. The application of GRNN, artificial intelligence or other techniques such as auto regressive integrated moving average and vector auto regression modeling helps analyze the data in a much more sophisticated manner and help come up with more robust and conclusive evidence.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, it is the first case study that compares the predictive performance of the hedonic multivariate regression model with the PNN-based GRNN model for housing prices in India.