Intro and methodology

This is a quick peek into my #MicroDataScience research on apartment rents. Overall I am interested in (1) variation of rents in then north and the south, and (2) to what extent metro stations affect housing rent. For this I chose two metro stations - one is Franconia-Springfield in the south of DC and the other is Vienna-GMU in the west of DC, both in northern Virginia. The metro stations serve 4 cities in the dataset: Franconia/Mt Vernon (Franconia-Springfield metro), Vienna/Oakton (Vienna-GMU metro). Apartment rents were gathered from Zillow.

Summary of rents

The tables below are results for overall, north and south NoVA respectively. Overall, for all 4 cities median apartment rent is $2,025/mo, a bit higher in the north ($2,250/mo) than in the south ($1,900/mo).

summary(d$rent)
##    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max. 
##    1000    1640    2025    2061    2500    3275
summary(north$rent)
##    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max. 
##    1350    1700    2250    2227    2550    3275
summary(south$rent)
##    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max. 
##    1000    1525    1900    1901    2250    2875

Rents per ft2 (square footage)

In contrast, rent per square footage is higher in the south. This is probably because lower floor area per apartment in the south. Overall for all cities mean rent per square footage is $1.5.

summary(d$rent.per.ft2)
##    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.    NA's 
##  0.9781  1.2621  1.5217  1.5624  1.7660  3.4286      14
summary(north$rent.per.ft2)
##    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.    NA's 
##  0.9781  1.2160  1.5000  1.5309  1.7636  2.5584       6
summary(south$rent.per.ft2)
##    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.    NA's 
##   1.003   1.392   1.553   1.594   1.763   3.429       8

Rent by apartment size

Yes, mean square footage is significantly higher in the north, which makes it cheaper in square footage, than in the south.

summary(north$ft2)
##    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.    NA's 
##     625    1076    1432    1520    2008    3016       6
summary(south$ft2)
##    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.    NA's 
##     350     954    1200    1283    1512    2478       8
##    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.    NA's 
##  0.9781  1.2045  1.5070  1.6072  1.7914  3.4286       8
##    Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max.    NA's 
##   1.003   1.384   1.536   1.529   1.663   2.138       6

Return on Investment (ROI) is higher in low square footage houses

Impact of metro station on apartment rents

Mean apartment rents near metro stations (within 20 minutes walking distance) is $2,266 and apartments farther away is rented out at $1,893 per month. This means you have to pay an additional amount of $300 if you want to take advantage of metro stations for your daily commute. To generalize, apartment rents are 15% higher near metro stations than local average. MAIN CAVEAT: 20 minutes walking distance cut-off is an assumption, I didn’t look for any empirical data.