With the rapid urbanization of Chinese cities, access to jobs and amenities is becoming increasingly valued in household’s choice of residential locations. In this paper, we estimate the implicit value of access to jobs and amenities in Beijing using the hedonic pricing model. The spatial distributions of jobs and amenities in the Beijing Metropolitan Area are quite centralized, supporting the traditional monocentric model in the urban economics literature. Accessibility indices are developed to measure the accessibilities to jobs and amenities of 129 Jiedaos (residential zones). We then employ the hedonic pricing equations to estimate the capitalization effects of these accessibility indices in the prices of new residential properties. The empirical results show that the accessibility indices are important determinants of residential property prices in Beijing, which means that urban residents have a willingness to pay for access to high quality amenities.

This paper examines homebuyer’s search process and the role of real estate broker in China’s urban housing market, where inactive housing resale transactions and an immature brokerage industry are distinct characteristics. Guangzhou is used as a case study to model the intensity and duration of the search process. This study finds that buyers make trade-off between two search costs, activity cost and duration cost. The study also demonstrates that despite the industry’s immature nature, buyers using brokers do increase search intensity and shorten search duration by reducing the activity cost. Empirical results show that there is no specific buyer group who can effectively lower their search cost by their own efforts, due to the poor information transparency in the current housing market. The broker-choice model shows that besides search cost, buyers’ confidence in broker’s service quality can also greatly influence their choice, so improvement in service quality and reputation has important implications for China’s brokerage industry.