House prices and accessibility: The testing of relationships within the Belfast Urban Area

The debate surrounding the sustainability of urban areas and the need to re duce dependency upon the car as the primary mode of transportation has reki ndled interest in the relationship between accessibility, price and locatio n of owner occupied housing. Traditionally, attempts at quantification have used hedonic analysis employing straight-line distance measurements to foc al points such as the CBD as an indicator of accessibility. This paper focu ses upon factors affecting the price structure of residential property in t he Belfast Urban Area, examining the relative influence of property charact eristics, socio-economic factors and the impact of accessibility. The model employs an accessibility index computed for each of 182 traffic zones and uses transaction data for a sample of 2648 residential properties sold duri ng 1996. Results indicate that accessibility is of little significance in e xplaining variation in house prices at a city-wide scale but at a sub-marke t level, particularly in lower-income areas, accessibility can be an import ant influence. The analysis highlights the importance of investigation at a sub-market level and draws conclusions regarding the complexity of relatio nships within an urban area.