Research on house prices and housing markets has traditionally been concerned with the
modelling of house price determinants using hedonic regression equations and other methods of
data interpretation. While this research has unveiled some useful insights into the relationships
between housing supply, housing demand, and selling price, more recent work has focused on
the "specialness" of housing as a commodity and the subsequent dismissal of regression
techniques that only serve to throw us into a "statistical soup". Recent research is different in
two key respects. First, forces other than macro-level variables (eg. interest rates and the
availability of finance) and micro-level variables (household income, size, proximity to work)
are believed to contribute to the fluctuations in housing prices over time and through space:
specifically, more subjective evaluations of locational amenity, identity construction, and
community are now considered in the valorisation of housing. Furthermore, newer research also
understands that exogenous influences (eg. immigration, foreign investment) now play a key role
in the determination of residential value.
This research on residential real estate markets in Canada engages in discussions
revolving around the latter of the two approaches using both qualitative and quantitative
methods. At the inter-urban scale, analysis of house price movements in Canada's largest cities
shows the divergence of Toronto and Vancouver from other CMAs, a trend that coincides with
the increasing globalisation of both cities over the last 15 years. Further, intra-urban analyses of
both Toronto and Vancouver demonstrate differential impacts of globalisation and economic
restructuring within each city with particular neighbourhoods being placed on more of a "global"
real estate market (eg. gentrified neighbourhoods, residential areas experiencing offshore
investment, and areas of settlement for wealthy immigrants). The particular impacts of
globalisation are, however, very different in each city and is dependant upon the nature of the
global flows that converge there. Moreover, these results are not politically mute; considerable
effort has been expended in Vancouver at least to obscure the actual effects of
internationalisation on the regional housing market.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/8293 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Tutchener, Judith Karen |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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