Property value assessment in Rio de Janeiro: the effects of transport investments

Abstract

This research assesses the effects of public urban transportation investments on property prices in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Our hypothesis is that opening a new transportation station increases access to the city for properties in their vicinity. The closer to the station, and the more accessibility to jobs the station offers, the more likely it is expected to be valued. Our contributions for this literature are threefold: first, we assess together two types of service, Subway and BRT. Second, we test other variable that represent accessibility, as well as distance to the station. A growing number of transport agencies, particularly in North America and Europe, use similar accessibility analysis to compare the benefits of potential transportation investments and evaluate their social impacts. The third contribution is to use home-sharing data (Airbnb) as a proxy for property prices. It allows us to adopt a fixed effect control variable for houses rather than the traditional hedonic regression approach. Results corroborates literature that shows that major improvements to public transport systems result in significant changes in real-estate prices. In cities with complex geographical barriers, like Rio de Janeiro, considering distance to station rather than other measures of accessibility can underestimate the capitalization effects.