2ND HOMES AND THE REAL-ESTATE MARKET - AN ANALYSIS CONTRIBUTING TO THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE REAL-ESTATE MARKET IN AUSTRIA

There is a great deal of geographical research into ''second-homes'', but monetary aspects are hardly ever touched upon. In a European conte xt, the property market on the whole underwent marked changes and deve loped a clear segmentation during the past few years in Austria as wel l. As a research project on the real estate market within the framewor k of the research focus of the Austrian Research Foundation (FWF) on ' 'Austria - Space and Society'' a number of theses were prepared about various segments of the property market by means of an analysis of adv ertisements. This cost-effective method is a novel approach in geograp hical real estate research. Special emphasis was placed on the investi gation of market phenomena. Due to the fact that advertisements tend t o mirror changes in the spectrum of supply and demand quickly, this te chnique appeared to be most appropriate. The present author's topic wa s ''Second Homes''. According to the data available the study concentr ated on second homes for leisure purposes. This paper deals primarily with the price of properties as the core variable. An extensive data a nalysis proved that the price charged for a second home depends on its location, the type and size of the building as well as on the qualiti es characterizing its surroundings. In this way not only Austria's cur rent status in the international property market but also its competit iveness was assessed. When comparing properties offers of estate agent s and those of the owners themselves the present author found, among o ther things, that estate agents generally advertise larger and higher- priced second homes and incline towards more expensive advertisements. It is interesting to note that estate agents in Austria do business m ainly in the provinces where their offices are located. Transactions a cross province boundaries are only found in the easternmost provinces, i.e. Lower-Austria, Vienna and Burgenland. Generally speaking, the st udy arrived at findings concerning the (in most cases) local and regio nal actors of the real estate market as well as the spectrum of advert isements in newspapers and magazines, the general characteristics, the location, type of building, and size of the second homes offered. Mor eover a map of the variations in real estate prices across Austria, bo th segments-specific and regional ones, is presented. It constitutes a firm basis for further research and has, moreover, prognostic value. Thus this paper is expected to contribute to the realm of geographical real estate research, a fascinating topic likely to remain so in futu re.