Discrete Choice Analysis of Housing Market Demand in Poland

The housing choice literature is a vast area of real estate research which has resulted in giant leaps forward in recent years in terms of econometric modelling. discrete choice theory has played an important role as the basis of empirical studies of housing demand in United States, and western Europe, at least from seminal work of McFadden (1978), where method was discussed as an alternative method of housing demand analysis. Later, influential empirical studies were conducted by Longley (1984), Quigley (1985), Earnhart (1998), Tu (2001), to name just a few major studies in housing demand area. The growing popularity of the approach rises, at least to some extent, from the fact that sophisticated econometric methods were integrated into various statistical programs, which made these tools available for a larger group of researchers. Discrete choice theory was used for simulating purposes, when modelling policy changes, as well as shedding new light on housing market dynamics. For example Anas and Arnott, developed a dynamic discrete choice equilibrium model, that integrated demand and supply side (1991), ran the model to examine housing market behaviour in Chicago (1993), and used it to simulate an impact of several housing policies (1994) in US cities. European simulation studies based on discrete choice models include several studies initiated in late 1990s - to enumerate just the most influential, conducted by Meen (1999), and Gibb, Meen and MacKay (2000). Recently Yates and Mackay (2006) have written a critical review of the housing choice literature, in addition to the examination of techniques that have been used to model the household's housing choice decision.