Exploring inequities in housing affordability through an analysis of walkability and house prices by neighbourhood socioeconomic disadvantage

Figures & data

Table 1. Built environment variables description and calculation methods.

Variable	Description/calculation method	Data source(s)
Walkability index	Composite of z-scores of street connectivity, dwelling density, and daily living score	ABS (2016), Open Street Map (2018)
Streetconnectivity	Number of intersections of three or more streets within 1600 m	ABS (2016), Open Street Map (2018)
Dwelling density	The total number of dwellings divided by the area in hectares	ABS (2021)
Daily living score	For each residential address, one point was assigned for having any supermarket, any public transit stops and/or any convenience store, petrol station or newsagent within 1600 m	Business-listings data sourced from Acxiom Australia
Distance to frequent transit stops	Distance to closet bus stop and distance to any public transit stop with a service frequency of at least 30 min between the hours of 7 am and 7pm	General Transit Feed Specification data

Table 2. Built environment characteristics of the Greater Melbourne area stratified by quintiles of socio-economic disadvantage.

	Overall		Q1 (Most disadvantaged)		Q2		Q3		Q4		Q5 (Least disadvantaged)
	Mean	SD^1	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
House price (scaled by 1000)	668.6	406.8	428.5	144.8	480.9	192.0	622.5	269.7	782.1	357.5	1039.7	580.1
Walkability	1.1	2.8	−0.1	1.2	0.5	2.6	1.4	3.5	1.4	2.5	2.4	2.9
Dwelling density	17.6	11.5	12.9	2.8	14.5	8.5	18.8	16.1	18.4	9.8	23.6	12.4
Street connectivity	93.5	32.7	81.5	17.7	94.3	35.9	95.9	35.3	94.5	32.0	101.7	35.4
Daily living score	2.5	0.5	2.4	0.5	2.4	0.6	2.6	0.5	2.6	0.4	2.7	0.4
Distance to frequent transit stops	1225.5	3222.4	1592.7	3744.0	2308.6	4737.4	839.6	1572.3	998.7	3281.9	400.2	585.0

¹SD = Standard Deviation.

Figure 1. Walkability and socio-economic disadvantage across the Greater Melbourne area.

Table 3. Linear regression model results stratified by quintiles of socio-economic disadvantage¹.

	M1		M2		M3
Dependent variable: house price/1000	Coef.	95% CI	Coef.	95% CI	Coef.	95% CI
Q1:(Most disadvantaged) (n = 20,945)
Walkability	11.42	9.20, 13.64
Dwelling density			6.24	5.53, 6.95	5.71	4.90, 6.51
Street connectivity			−0.83	−0.96, −0.70	−0.90	−1.05, −0.76
Daily living score			32.13	28.07, 36.21	31.18	27.04, 35.32
Distance to freq. transit stops^3					−1.10	−1.75, −0.44
Q2 (n = 20,571)
Walkability	23.65	21.67, 25.63
Dwelling density			3.05	2.20, 3.91	3.07	2.22, 3.92
Street connectivity			1.14	0.97, 1.29	1.03	0.86, 1.19
Daily living score			1.91	−2.98, 6.80	−3.93	−8.85, 1.00
Distance to freq. transit stops^3					−3.61	−3.99, −3.23
Q3 (n = 21,978)
Walkability	18.49	17.21, 19.77
Dwelling density			3.62	3.23, 4.01	3.77	3.38, 4.16
Street connectivity			−0.43	−0.59, −0.26	−0.60	−0.77, −0.44
Daily living score			90.30	82.52, 98.08	75.10	67.15, 83.05
Distance to freq. transit stops^3					−15.24	−16.88, −13.61
Q4 (n = 21,017)
Walkability	37.91	35.81, 40.03
Dwelling density			5.62	5.01, 6.23	5.48	4.87, 6.09
Street connectivity			0.62	0.46, 0.78	0.53	0.37, 0.70
Daily living score			102.25	90.61, 113.89	75.16	63.20, 87.12
Distance to freq. transit stops^3					−10.47	−11.37, −9.56
Q5 (Least disadvantaged) (n = 20,267)
Walkability	19.40	16.98, 21.81
Dwelling density			0.89	0.21, 1.57	0.83	0.14, 1.50
Street connectivity			0.28	0.035, 0.53	0.19	−0.05, 0.44
Daily living score			157.35	135.62, 179.07	99.28	74.79, 123.76
Distance to freq. transit stops^3					−77.72	−89.58, 65.85
Overall (104,778)
Walkability	39.06	37.97, 40.15
Dwelling density			9.94	9.61, 10.27	9.93	9.60, 10.25
Street connectivity			−1.16	−1.27, −1.07	−1.36	−1.46, −1.26
Daily living score			143.30	138.44, 148.16	121.90	116.95, 126.84
Distance to freq. transit stops^3					−12.62	−13.12, −12.13

¹Models were adjusted for property characteristics including property type (house, unit, townhouse), number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, number of car parks, having a study, having a separate dining room, having a family room, having a sunroom, having a rumpus, having heating, having air conditioning, having an ensuite, having a garage and having pool and a series of indicator variables to measure the quarter in which the house sold.

²CI = 95% Confidence Interval.

³Distance to frequent transit stops was scaled by 1000.

Table 4. Walkability premium/discount and percentage of change in price.

	Walkability quartiles^1	Coef. of M1	Walkability premium/discount ($)^2	Walkability premium/discount (%)^3
Q1 (Most disadvantaged)
Very low	−1.67	11.42	−19,071	−5.00
Low	−0.20	11.42	−2,284	−0.57
Moderate	0.39	11.42	4,454	1.10
High	1.11	11.42	12,676	3.07
Q2
Very low	−1.89	23.65	−44,699	−11.42
Low	−0.27	23.65	−6,386	−1.49
Moderate	0.52	23.65	12,298	2.74
High	3.78	23.65	89,397	17.01
Q3
Very low	−1.50	18.49	−27,735	−5.50
Low	0.15	18.49	2,774	0.52
Moderate	0.92	18.49	17,011	3.10
High	5.92	18.49	109,461	17.07
Q4
Very low	−1.19	37.91	−45,113	−6.31
Low	0.36	37.91	13,648	1.76
Moderate	1.21	37.91	45,871	5.69
High	5.09	37.91	192,962	20.25
Q5 (Least disadvantaged)
Very low	−0.77	19.40	−14,938	−1.19
Low	0.97	19.40	18,818	1.46
Moderate	2.82	19.40	54,708	4.13
High	6.58	19.40	127,652	9.13
Overall
Very low	−1.49	39.06	−58,199	−10.87
Low	0.14	39.06	5,468	0.91
Moderate	0.92	39.06	35,935	5.71
High	4.89	39.06	191,003	24.34

¹The main data set (104,778 property records) was stratified based on five IRSD groups, then quartiles of walkability were generated for each IRSD sub-dataset.

²Walkability premium/discount was calculated compared to the price of a typical house in the greater Melbourne which has two bedrooms, one bathroom, a study room, a garage, heating, air conditioning and ensuite. Typical house values were calculated as $593,680 in the Greater Melbourne area, $400,461 in Q1 (most disadvantaged) areas , $436,192 in Q2 areas, $531,606 in Q3 areas, $759,993 in Q4 areas, $1,269,845 in Q5 (least disadvantaged) areas using the estimates of the M1 models for each strata of disadvantage group (see Table 3.).

³Percentage of price difference was calculated using the equation: $Pricedifference(\mathrm{\%})=\frac{(Pric{e}_{walkability}-Pric{e}_{Typicalhouse})\times 100}{Pric{e}_{Typicalhouse}}$

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