The private rental housing market before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A submarket analysis in Cracow, Poland

Abstract

How the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the segmentation of residential rental markets is largely unknown. We therefore assessed rental housing submarkets before and during the pandemic in Cracow, Poland. We used geographically and temporally weighted regression to investigate the marginal prices of housing attributes over space–time. The marginal prices were further reduced to a few principal components per time period and spatially clustered to identify housing submarkets. Finally, we applied the adjusted Rand index to evaluate the spatiotemporal stability of the housing submarkets. The results revealed that the pandemic outbreak significantly lowered rents and modified the relevance of some housing characteristics for rental prices. Proximity to the university was no longer among the residential amenities during the pandemic. Similarly, the virus outbreak diminished the effect of a housing unit’s proximity to the city center. The market partitioning showed that the number of Cracow’s residential rental submarkets increased significantly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it enhanced the spatial variation in the marginal prices of covariates. Our findings suggest that the emergence of the coronavirus reshaped the residential rental market in three ways: Rents were decreased, the underlying rental price-determining factors changed, and the spatiotemporal submarket structure was altered.

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected the Functioning of Tourist Short-Term Rental Platforms (Airbnb and Vrbo) in Polish Cities

“…An additional interesting commentary on the research is provided by Tomal and Helbich’s (2022) analysis of the Kraków housing market. It shows that the COVID-19 pandemic saw rents fall significantly all across Kraków, and proximity to the city centre also became a significantly weaker determinant of rent level (see also [ 97 ]). The real situation is explained by Tomal and Helbich (2022) by the influx of short-term rented apartments, mainly from Airbnb, onto the long-term rental market.…”

“…A few studies on individual cities were written, mainly on Warsaw [ 55 , 91 , 92 ] and Kraków [ 93 ]. Part of the discussion was devoted to the impact of Airbnb’s activities on various areas of city functioning (e.g., [ 21 , 22 , 94 , 95 , 96 ], housing [ 56 , 91 ], and the rental housing market [ 97 ]. The purpose of and/or possibilities for limiting STR in Poland were also discussed [ 26 ].…”

“…The latest works considering the pandemic in analyses of the rental housing market refer indirectly to STR in Warsaw [ 56 ] and Kraków [ 97 ]. A broader view is brought by the work of Adamiak (2022), who recently showed general changes in Poland in tourist flats and registered accommodation facilities.…”

Tempo-Spatial Modelling of the Spread of COVID-19 in Urban Spaces

“…We have treated the size of the houses as a determining characteristic and its main use, trying to differentiate between the tourist use as an essential factor for the potential spread of the COVID-19 disease, given the mobility of people (tourists of various origins) that this causes. However, we are aware that there are many other aspects that can be treated and are highlighted in the scientific literature [ 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 ].…”

The Impact of Covid-19 on the Use of Modern Technologies By Real Estate Brokers

“…30, no. 2, 2022 quickly to market changes and needs (Marona & Tomal, 2020;Tomal, 2020;Akpan et al, 2020;Augustyniak et al, 2021;Bełej, 2021;Trojanek, 2021;Trojanek et al, 2021;Najbar, 2021;Stankowska & Stankowska-Mazur, 2022;Tomal & Helbich, 2022). While the problem of using modern technologies is present in scientific research (Starr et al, 2020;Baum 2017;Ullah et al, 2018), the manner in which they are applied in the work of brokers under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic is underresearched.…”