A Demonstration of Sustainability Arguments Using House Price Data

Real estate is today seen through the widespread sustainability discourse where buildings and land use occupies a core position. Land and buildings are also subject to sustainability evaluations along environmental, social, cultural and economic dimensions. In this paper cross-sectional data on house prices and sales volumes from Budapest, Hungary, for the period 2000-09 are analysed using time-windows generated by the self-organizing map (SOM) algorithms. In particular, upper-market cases are related to sustainable innovations insofar as such exist, which is examined using interviews and field inspection. The results however suggest that such features are largely absent in the period of data collection, although future markets are likely to be different in this respect.