A proper understanding of the drivers of property prices is of great interest to many stakeholders | not just property investors, but governments and construction companies to ensure that the effects of construction and city planning changes on property prices are known. It is important to know what value has been added or lost, to either possibly tax or compensate as deemed necessary.
There has been no large scale study in Sydney to determine the major explanatory variables of residential property prices. The purpose of this study was to provide an analysis of which factors were statistically significant in explaining residential property prices, focusing primarily on levels of pollution and accessibility to transport and industry. Data was obtained from the EPA, the 2001 Census, the mapping software program Mapinfo, the Transport Data Centre, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research and property information from Residex. The ¯nal sample comprised 37,676 properties which sold in the year of 2001, making it by far the largest study of this type anywhere in the world.
