DETERMINANTS OF APARTMENT RENTS IN THE SEOUL METROPOLITAN REGION: SPATIAL ECONOMETRIC APPROACHES

This research aims to analyze the determinants of apartment rents in the Seoul Metropolitan area using spatial econometrics approaches. Since spatial econometrics approaches have advantages to solve limitations of ordinary multiple regression such as spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity. This research includes structural variables such as number of rooms and baths, neighborhood variables such as number of housing units in the apartment complex, and location variables including distances to subway stations, to traditional markets, to educational institutes, and to urban services such as parks, etc. The result shows that the accessibilities to the CBD, to subcenters, to subway station, to school, and to parks contribute to apartment rent uplift and also shows different spatial variations in rent premiums by accessibility variables. In particular, apartments located south of Han river along the Lines 2, 3, 7 and 9 have the highest rent premiums due to the accessibility to the subway.