Purpose – The aim of this study is to add to the emerging knowledge base in the UK and be of relevance to land use planners and all stakeholders in property taxation. Urban green open spaces are valuable environmental resources often associated with positive influences for quality of life and property value. Design/methodology/approach – Using a hedonic pricing specification, this paper measures the proximate effect of public green space on residential property value. It examines the relationship between 3,854 residential sales transactions and public green spaces across the Belfast housing market gathered from Land and Property Services throughout the year 2011 showing the percentage effect on property value with respect to distance to public green spaces. Findings – The results show that, ceteris paribus, urban green space has a significant positive impact on proximate residential properties sale price for the terrace and apartment sectors and that terrace and apartment property located closer to public green spaces achieved increases in sale price of up to 49 per cent. Adjacency to green open space produced significant property value premiums in only two of the four housing types analysed, with limited statistically significant proximate effects evident for the detached and semi-detached sectors, a finding which has important social and public policy implications. Originality/value – A number of empirical studies have demonstrated that public green space, such as urban parks, have a positive impact on property values. However, there is a paucity of empirical research on this relationship in the UK. This study serves to address this gap by examining the effect of public green spaces on house price within the medium-sized regional city in the UK.

Purpose -This study aims to investigate the relationship between energy performance and property sale price in the Belfast housing market. How energy efficiency is contributes to sale price and thus appraisal value is of growing concern. The obligatory measurement of energy efficiency in private dwellings seeks to encourage improvements in energy performance. This may be capitalised into property value and may stimulate demand for energy-efficient buildings. However, the relationship between energy performance and property value remains nebulous, complex and under-researched -in part due to data limitations. Design/methodology/approach -Using a hedonic pricing specification, this paper measures the effect of energy performance certificates (EPCs) on residential property value. It examines the relationship between 3,797 residential sales transactions across the Belfast housing market, showing the percentage effect on property value with respect to energy performance. Findings -The results indicate a small but positive relationship between better energy performance and higher selling prices. Nonetheless, the findings point towards strong preference, demand tastes and a complex intra-relationship between EPCs and their capitalisation into property value. Pertinently, the findings point towards any energy-efficient-related price effect affect to be marginal alongside more "quality"-based market behaviours. Research limitations/implications -Analogous with other studies, data deficiencies and a lack of incorporating price determining variables (missing determinants) such as heating type and glazing type introduces omitted variable bias and endogeneity problems within the model structure. Originality/value -This paper contributes to emerging literature and policy debate surrounding the measurement and implementation of energy-efficiency certification through a greater understanding of energy performance characteristics in determining property value.

Purpose – Accounting for locational effects in determining price is of fundamental importance. The demise of the mainstream property market has culminated in increasing appetite and investment activity within the private rental sector. The primary purpose of this paper aims to analyse the local variation and spatial heterogeneity in residential rental prices in a large urban market in the UK using various geo-statistical approaches. Design/methodology/approach – Applying achieved price data derived from a leading internet-based rental agency for Belfast Northern Ireland is analysed in a number of spatially based modelling frameworks encompassing more traditional approaches such as hedonic regressive models to more complex spatial filtering methods to estimate rental values as a function of the properties implicit characteristics and spatial measures. Findings – The principal findings show the efficacy of the geographically weighted regression (GWR) technique as it provides increased accuracy in predicting marginal price estimates relative to other spatial techniques. The results reveal complex spatial non-stationarity across the Belfast metropole emphasizing the premise of location in determining and understanding rental market performance. A key finding emanating from the research is that the high level of segmentation across localised pockets of the Belfast market, as a consequence of socio-political conflict and ethno-religious territoriality segregation, requires further analytical insight and model specification in order to understand the exogenous spatial and societal effects/implications for rental value. Originality/value – This study is one of only a few investigations of spatial residential rent price variation applying the GWR methodology, spatial filtering and other spatial techniques within the confines of a UK housing market. In the context of residential rent prices, the research highlights that a soft segmentation modelling approaches are essential for understanding rental gradients in a polarised ethnocratic city.

Purpose A number of studies have investigated the relationship between energy performance certificates (EPCs) and house prices. A majority of studies have tended to model energy performance pricing effects within a traditional hedonic conditional mean estimate model. There has been limited analysis that has accounted for the relationship between EPCs and the effects across the pricing distribution. Moreover, there has been limited research examining the “standard cost improvements EPC score”, or “potential score”. Therefore, this paper aims to quantify and measure the dynamic effects of EPCs on house prices across the price spectrum and account for standardised cost-effective retrofit improvements. Design/methodology/approach Existing EPC studies produce one coefficient for the entirety of the pricing distribution, culminating in a single marginal implicit price effect. The approach within this study applies a quantile regression approach to empirically estimate how quantiles of house prices respond differently to unitary changes in the proximal effects of EPCs and structural property characteristics across the conditional distribution of house prices. Using a data set of 1,476 achieved transaction prices, the quantile regression models apply both assessed EPC score and bands and further examine the potential EPC rating for improved energy performance based on an average energy cost improvement. Findings The findings show that EPCs are valued differently across the quantiles and that conditional quantiles are asymmetrical. Only property prices in the upper quantiles of the price distribution show significant capitalisation effects with energy performance, and only properties with higher EPC scores display positive significant effects at the higher end of the price distribution. There are also brown discount effects evident for lower-rated properties within F- and G-rated EPC properties at the higher end of the pricing distribution. Moreover, the potential energy efficiency rating (score) also shows increased effects with sales prices and appears to minimise any brown discount effects. The findings imply that energy performance is a complex feature that is not easily “averaged” for valuation effect purposes. Originality/value While numerous studies have investigated the pricing effects of EPCs, they have tended to provide a single estimate to determine the relationship with price. This paper extends the traditional analytical insights beyond the conditional mean estimate by examining the quantiles of the relationship between EPCs and house prices to enhance the understanding of this esoteric and complex issue. In addition, this research applies the assessed energy efficiency potential to establish whether effective cost improvements enhance the relationship with sales price and capitalisation effects.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate delay factors within private housing construction in Northern Ireland. Delays are inherent throughout the construction industry and create major difficulties in terms of project performance and client satisfaction. Whilst a voluminous body of international literature has investigated pertinent delay factors within construction projects, there is a relative paucity of research which offers a more delineated exploration of delay factors affecting private housing development schemes, particularly in the UK context. Design/methodology/approach -This study applies questionnaire survey research to examine the relative importance of 75 delay attribute factors for housing construction projects in Northern Ireland. The approach applies both a relative rank and principal component analysis to distil the key factors impinging upon the delay process in housing construction. Findings -The key finding from this research is that delays within the housing construction sector in Northern Ireland can be attributed to deficiencies in site management, ineffective communication strategies and a lack of coordination between key stakeholders involved in the construction process. Originality/value -The study adds to the existing knowledge base and provides stakeholders with information on factors, which, if properly risk assessed and understood, can improve housing construction performance. The findings are of relevance to construction industry practitioners, policy makers and researchers with lessons learned serving as a basis for future policy development as well as affording an information platform for improving the efficiency and expediency of housing provision internationally.