HOW MUCH DOES A MINUTE OF COMMUTING TIME COST? AN EXAMINATION OF PROPERTY PRICES IN RELATION TO DISTANCE TO THE CITY CENTER IN PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

• Main Authors: Martin Lukavec, Božena Kadeřábková
• Format: Article
• Language: ces
• Published: Czech Technical University, Prague 2017-12-01
• Series: Civil Engineering Journal
• Subjects: Property Prices; Proximity to the CBD; Cities; Prague
• Online Access: http://www.civilengineeringjournal.cz/archive/issues/2017/2017_4/4-2017-0044.pdf

This paper sets out to explore the strength of the relationship between the proximity of a property to the city center and its price. Buyers are willing to pay extra for apartments or houses closer to the city center, but the extent of this willingness remains largely unexplored. Our research question is: How much does a minute of commuting time influence the price of an apartment in Prague? In other words, with every minute of commuting time, how much more is paid for a house or an apartment closer to the central business district (CBD)? Our analysis has found that on average, every minute of commuting time closer to the city center corresponds to an additional cost of CZK 43,390.45 for an average sized apartment in Prague. A regression analysis is graphically plotted in the Chart 1. We have also found that this relationship changes according to distance from the city center. For a commuting time of 1-20 minutes to the city center, the price increase is the highest: CZK 259,466.18 per minute. However, this figure is only CZK 55,809.01 for the interval of 21-40 minutes, and CZK 33,924.29 per minute for the interval of 41-55 minutes.