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What Drives the Premium for Energy-Efficient Apartments – Green Awareness or Purchasing Power?

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  • Carolin Pommeranz
  • Bertram I. Steininger

    (KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

Abstract

We analyze whether lower rents for energy-inefficient apartments reflect tenants’ willingness to pay due to a higher green awareness, purchasing power, or energy consumption costs. Based on a German rental apartment dataset from Q1 2007 to Q1 2019, we use interaction terms for socioeconomic characteristics in a hedonic regression model. We find that rents are lower for apartments with higher energy consumption, even in neighborhoods with lower levels of green awareness. This relationship is stronger in neighborhoods with higher purchasing power, such that communities with low levels of green awareness and high purchasing power show the steepest negative slope for increasing energy consumption (−8.6% from the highest to lowest rating). Thus, the rent-decreasing effect of purchasing power is higher than that of green awareness. Splitting the entire period into smaller windows, we find that the interaction effect of green awareness has emerged in the most recent years (2017–2019). This may be driven by changes in regulation, which have made it easier for tenants to assess the energy consumption before they rent, or by a general increase in green awareness over this period.

Suggested Citation

  • Carolin Pommeranz & Bertram I. Steininger, 2021. "What Drives the Premium for Energy-Efficient Apartments – Green Awareness or Purchasing Power?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 220-241, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jrefec:v:62:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s11146-020-09755-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11146-020-09755-8
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    Cited by:

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    2. Rohan Best & Paul J. Burke & Rabindra Nepal & Zac Reynolds, 2021. "Effects of rooftop solar on housing prices in Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 65(3), pages 493-511, July.
    3. Piwońska Kalina & Urbańska Michalina & Pilarska Eliza & Miniszewski Maciej & Staniszewski Jakub & Kryszak Łukasz, 2021. "Managing sustainable consumption of durable goods – A systematic literature review," Management, Sciendo, vol. 25(2), pages 73-90, December.
    4. Aleksandar Petreski & Dorothea Schäfer & Andreas Stephan, 2022. "Green Bonds’ Reputation Effect and Its Impact on the Financing Costs of the Real Estate Sector," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2019, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Geske, Joachim, 2022. "The value of energy efficiency in residential buildings – a matter of heterogeneity?!," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Energy efficiency; Energy performance certificates; Price differentiation; Consumer behavior;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D49 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Other
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • Q43 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Energy and the Macroeconomy
    • Q48 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Government Policy
    • Q51 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Valuation of Environmental Effects
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

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