Title: Capitalisation rates and 'real estate semantic chains': an application of clustering analysis

Authors: Salvatore Giuffrida; Giovanna Ferluga; Alberto Valenti

Addresses: Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, Viale Andrea Doria 6, 95125-Catania, Italy ' Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, Viale Andrea Doria 6, 95125-Catania, Italy ' Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, Viale Andrea Doria 6, 95125-Catania, Italy

Abstract: Ortigia, the historic centre of Syracuse, is a complex urban entity characterised by high outer homogeneity and inner heterogeneity. The evolution of its real estate market during the last decade is somehow related to the global property market one. In addition its events are connected with the evolution of the exploiting policies still ongoing. The critical observations of its features aim at providing tools able to support the decisions about subsidies and local property taxes. This study continues the observations we have carried out for five years, this time involving clustering analysis, a data mining technique able to recognise different submarkets, and suitable to make the valuation pattern fit to the different market areas. For each of the latter significant characteristics have been recognised with reference to the 'monetary declination' of these particular capital assets.

Keywords: old towns; urban renovation; imperfect real estate markets; mass appraisals; financial speculation; theory of capital; semiotic approach; semantic chains; capitalisation rate; data mining; cluster analysis; hierarchical aggregative algorithm; complete linkage; dendrogram; root mean square standard deviation; semantics; valuation patterns; capital assets; Syracuse; Sicily; historic cities.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIDM.2015.069271

International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining, 2015 Vol.10 No.2, pp.174 - 198

Published online: 06 May 2015 *

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