A Literature Review of Measuring Sustainability in the Real Estate Market

The real estate sector is a rapidly growing sector considered the locomotive of economic development. However, besides rapid growth, unplanned urbanization has led to significant problems such as environmental pollution, degradation of natural vegetation and soil resources, reduction of water resources and drinking water, destruction of biodiversity and damage to the ozone layer, global warming, and climate change, as well as intensive waste problems. The building industry causes issues ranging from excessive consumption of natural resources to environmental pollution in building construction and use. For real estate markets to be characterized as sustainable, it is essential to leave livable areas for future generations and, at the same time to develop several economic, financial, and legal policies. The idea of sustainability is on the agenda of many organizations, such as the United Nations and the European Union Commission. The United Nations has listed 17 items within the scope of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals: “sustainable cities and society”. Sustainability of societies and cities and leaving a livable world to future generations are the goals of developed countries. Therefore, supporting many environmental, legal, and political factors and providing economic development is necessary. While it is so crucial for the real estate sector to be sustainable, the concept of sustainability appears as an abstract concept. For this reason, studies to measure sustainability are extremely important. Within the scope of the research, a literature review was conducted on the measurement of sustainability in real estate markets. The review was taken advantage of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline. Using keywords that may be related to the real estate sector, 113 studies in the Web of Science database and 152 studies in the Scopus database were analyzed in detail. The studies were evaluated by combining them with content analysis. According to the results of the research, it is seen that sustainability in real estate markets is mostly investigated at the environmental level.