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Internet platforms enabling the short-term rental of private homes are an increasingly important provider of tourist accommodation and a challenge for urban policy. Airbnb is frequently blamed for encouraging property owners to remove their homes from the permanent housing market, thus contributing to the gentrification and displacement of local residents. Empirical research on this topic has been mostly represented by qualitative or indirect quantitative studies, which focus on changes in housing availability rather than the actual population. In our study, we fill this gap by presenting a study of the city of Stockholm, using two sources of georeferenced data: information on properties offered for rent on the Airbnb platform and micro-data on individuals and properties derived from the national statistical office. We verify whether the high number of apartment rental offers on the Airbnb website contributes to the high number of apartments that became uninhabited during 2012–2016. Using both aspatial and spatial autoregressive models, we find that the platform expansion does have a significant effect on the number of emptied apartments, and thus conclude that the presence of Airbnb contributes to the process of touristification, understood as the replacement of permanent residents with non-permanent populations. This confirms that when analysing urban population change and the gentrification process, mobile populations should be considered. Context-aware multiscalar and relational approaches are needed to understand the interrelation between human mobility, housing markets and regulations, and transnational internet platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of the article is to present the affordability of rental prices in relation to property sales prices and to assess the situation in Poland compared to selected European Union countries. Design/methodology/approach: To examine rental affordability in Poland, the ratio of average rents to incomes was determined in the 7 largest cities, and compared. Rental prices for a standardized apartment size (50 m2 ) were calculated for selected EU capitals based on average rent per m2 rates, and their ratio to average monthly earnings of a full-time worker was assessed. Findings: Based on the conducted analyses, it can be concluded that despite the increase in average rents in the surveyed Polish cities, rental affordability is improving. This is due to the fact that incomes are rising faster than rental prices. Simultaneously, while rental costs in Poland burden budgets significantly, Warsaw's situation is not the worst among the selected European capitals. There are cities where high incomes do not guarantee ease of renting. Afforda is very limited, and housing expenses consume a significant portion of earnings (more than in Poland). Research limitations/implications: The analysis of rental affordability in Poland was conducted for the 7 largest cities. Further analysis for smaller cities would be valuable to assess affordability in smaller, local rental markets. In the context of the European market analysis, calculations were based on selected EU capitals due to data affordability regarding rental rates, making it difficult to generalize the situation across entire countries. These limitations suggest potential directions for further research focusing on both local markets within Poland and considering the situation across entire EU countries. Future research should also focus on developing new indicators and evaluation methods for housing affordability, as well as assessing the effectiveness of various housing policies. Practical implications: Determining rental affordability can provide crucial information for governments developing support programs for individuals struggling to afford rent, as well as for property owners and developers making decisions regarding new investments and property purchases for rental purposes based on investment returns. Knowledge of rental affordability can assist in adjusting market offerings and pricing strategies to meet market needs. Social implications: Studying rental affordability reveals the scale of issues related to mismatching rental prices with societal income levels. Affordable housing could increase societal mobility, enhancing income by providing access to better-paying jobs, education, and services. Affordable housing provides residents with a greater sense of stability, influencing quality of life and reducing stress. Originality/value: Rental affordability is a growing concern in the EU. While numerous indicators address this issue, most focus on the property sales market. The authors identified a gap in studying rental affordability, particularly in a European context. This research targets investors in the rental market, developers, and governments influencing rental rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe governance of informal settlements in China – primarily urban villages – remains a persistent challenge. Recently, some urban village houses have been transformed into long-term rental apartments (LRAs). This highlights a potentially novel approach to addressing the longstanding informality issue, but how the rental market in urban villages has thus been reshaped remains unknown. Examining the case of Shenzhen’s Yuanfen Village through the lens of regulating informality, this paper reveals that (1) new renovations are facilitated by the intermediary management of LRA companies with government consent; (2) the renovation into LRAs involves a balancing process among stakeholders but leaves the illegal aspects untouched; and (3) while the renovation improves the living environment, low-income households are inevitably displaced. This study contributes to a theoretical and practical understanding of regulating informality by challenging the monolithic formal-informal dichotomy and connecting the conceptualization and materialization of continuous and dynamic property rights that enable new possibilities for effective and inclusive management of urban growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Older adults are insufficiently physically active, despite its importance for healthy aging. To develop appropriate physical activity interventions, it is necessary to understand their physical activity. This study applies a theoretical perspective, the COM-B model, and a mixed-method design to examine what influences older adults' physical activity levels with three questions: (1) What individual and external factors predict older adults' physical activity levels? (2) What do older adults perceive as influencing their levels of physical activity? (3) To what extent do the quantitative results on older adults' physical activity levels agree and disagree with the qualitative findings on older adults' physical activity levels? Methods: A convergent mixed-method design was used with questionnaire (n = 334) and interview (n = 14) data from adults 65 years and older. Regression analyses were used for quantitative measurements: physical activity, age, subjective socioeconomic status, health status, capability, opportunity, motivation, and depression. Content analysis was applied to the qualitative data. The two forms of data were then integrated to provide greater insights than would be obtained by either dataset separately. Results: The regression analyses showed that previous physical activity, current motivation, health status, and age significantly predicted older adults' physical activity levels. The content analysis revealed that participants addressed all subcomponents of the COM-B model, indicating its pertinence in understanding how older adults discuss their current physical activity levels. The integrated findings showed convergent and divergent results. Overall results indicated that previous physical activity engagement, present motivation, capability, and opportunity influenced older adults' physical activity levels. Conclusions: This study is the first to use this mixed-methods design to examine factors influencing physical activity levels among older adults living in rental apartments with community hosts. The integrated result reveals convergence for findings on motivation and physical capability but divergence on psychological capability, opportunity, and previous physical activity. The findings underscore a complex interplay of factors influencing older adults' physical activity levels and indicate relevance for the COM-B model. The results can guide future research on theoretically informed interventions to promote physical activity and healthy aging. Future research should clarify the role of opportunity for older adults' physical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractMigrant housing-related disadvantages and residential segregation are both important concerns in migrant-receiving countries. However, there exists little understanding about the connection between the two. According to the spatial assimilation framework, migrants who establish themselves in the labour market and experience income increase tend to move to higher-income neighbourhoods. However, migrant opportunities to rent or buy an apartment may vary across cities due to each city having its own distinctive housing regimes, along with related tenure structures, as emphasised by the housing availability framework. Different opportunity structures may lead to different pathways of spatial assimilation, as moving into a higher-income neighbourhood does not necessarily entail becoming a homeowner, and vice versa. The main findings of our comparative and longitudinal study reveal that different pathways of spatial assimilation indeed do arise in cities which have different housing regimes, as has been proposed by the housing availability framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of FinanzRundschau is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Abgaben-, Finanz- und Steuerrecht is the property of Verlag Oesterreich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In micro-level data concerning the housing market, the apartment quality may be signaled via textual statements or the attached descriptions/photos. It may be done using hard information related to the easier-to-measure structural characteristics or soft information related to the apartment condition and design - soft quality. This paper checks whether the choice of the approach to handling the issue of soft quality of apartments influences the properties of hedonic models and the course of hedonic rent indices. The study shows that hedonic models that account for soft quality have better statistical properties than those without soft-quality-related variables. Among them, the models that include the information on quality extracted from descriptions of apartments prove to be the best. Still, considerable differences in the indicated course of hedonic rent indices have not been detected. However, the paper concludes that utilizing information on apartments' soft quality may be crucial to understanding the market adjustment process to economic shocks. It has been proven that the price reaction of the Poznań (Poland) rental market to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian aggression on Ukraine has been diversified in the quality-related market segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is a review of the film "Knox Goes Away: All Murderers Have Deteriorating Minds." The film follows a contract killer who is diagnosed with dementia and is given the chance to redeem himself by saving his estranged son. The film diverges from traditional assassin plotlines by featuring a protagonist with multiple PhDs and a background as a professor. The review compares the film to real-life cases of professors turned killers and discusses the unrealistic aspects of the plot. Despite its departure from reality, the reviewer finds the film intellectually engaging due to its unique character and plot. [Extracted from the article]

Residential segregation refers to the phenomenon where people of different socioeconomic backgrounds live in spatially separated areas. It is essential to ensure equitable access to urban amenities for all residents in pursuit of the normative values in urban planning. To achieve this planning goal, the disparity in accessibility to urban amenities needs to be appropriately diagnosed. Private apartments and public rental apartments are representative types of residences where residential segregation is likely to occur in the context of South Korea, since these two types show considerable differences in education, income, and occupations. The objective of this study is to develop an analysis framework for diagnosing the difference in accessibility to urban amenities between the two residential types, and to empirically demonstrate their utility in the planning process. The most highlighted methodological novelty of the proposed analysis framework is that it includes not only global indicators for diagnosing the overall level of accessibility in the entire study area and assessing its statistical significance but also local indicators that represent local variations in accessibility. The empirical analysis conducted on Seoul revealed that not only were there significant local variations in accessibility between the two segregated residential areas, but the overall differences across the entire area were also pronounced. The proposed framework is useful in supporting decision-making processes for locating new public facilities or identifying regional priorities for guiding the placement of private amenities, with the aim of mitigating differences between segregated residential areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"One Season in Rocket City: How the 1985 Huntsville Stars Brought Minor League Baseball Fever to Alabama" by Dale Tafoya is a book that explores the impact of the Huntsville Stars' inaugural season in 1985. The book highlights the development of the team and its role in the renaissance of Huntsville, Alabama, which was experiencing a boom centered around the space shuttle program. Tafoya also delves into the stories of key figures, such as players Jose Canseco and Tim Belcher, as well as the challenges faced by minor league players. Despite initial doubts, the Stars became a sensation, winning a championship and uniting the community. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: Short-term rental is one of the forms of rental that has become extremely popular in recent decades. Perceiving residential real estate also through the prism of possible benefits from renting has enabled real estate owners to compete with organized services provided by hotel facilities. The article aims to analyze the supply of the short-term rental market in selected large Polish cities about the offer of hotel services. Design/methodology/approach: The offer of short-term rental apartments was analyzed based on the data of active real estate properties published on the Airbnb portal over 12 months, i.e., from October 2021 to September 2022. Data from the Statistics Office and the Ministry of Tourism and Sports were used. Findings: The analysis showed that large Polish cities are similar in terms of the structure and quality of short-term rental supply and do not differ from the trends typical of large cities around the world. Large cities in Poland usually offered small, autonomous, and well-equipped facilities where you could stay for any number of days, and which were available at attractive prices - often lower than the prices of rooms in even the highest standard hotels. Research limitations/implications: Short-term rental offers should be monitored not only because of their competitiveness in the hotel industry but also because of the possibility of changes in the functional structure of large cities. Originality/value: In the face of changes in the world, alternative services that were not so popular until recently may become increasingly important for the global economy. The article may be of interest to entrepreneurs from the hotel industry, users, and providers of booking platforms, as well as researchers of the sharing economy phenomena. The originality of the publication lies in its approach to booking platforms as an alternative to classic hotel services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of FinanzRundschau is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose: This is the first article to apply a machine learning approach to the analysis of time on market on real estate markets. Design/methodology/approach: The random survival forest approach is introduced to the real estate market. The most important predictors of time on market are revealed and it is analyzed how the survival probability of residential rental apartments responds to these major characteristics. Findings: Results show that price, living area, construction year, year of listing and the distances to the next hairdresser, bakery and city center have the greatest impact on the marketing time of residential apartments. The time on market for an apartment in Munich is lowest at a price of 750 € per month, an area of 60 m2, built in 1985 and is in a range of 200–400 meters from the important amenities. Practical implications: The findings might be interesting for private and institutional investors to derive real estate investment decisions and implications for portfolio management strategies and ultimately to minimize cash-flow failure. Originality/value: Although machine learning algorithms have been applied frequently on the real estate market for the analysis of prices, its application for examining time on market is completely novel. This is the first paper to apply a machine learning approach to survival analysis on the real estate market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study set out to identify and analyze the factors that influence the formation of rental prices for residential apartments in the city of Belém. The approach adopted was based on the hedonic price theory, which considers that the rental price of an apartment reflects the implicit prices of its attributes—structural, locational, and neighborhood quality. The sample used consisted of 259 observations, corresponding to the rental advertisements of the representative apartments in each building. The ordinary least squares (OLS), spatial lag model (SLM), and geographically weighted regression (GWR) techniques were used in the statistical analysis in this study. The results of the OLS model showed statistical significance between the attributes analyzed and the rental price of the apartments. In turn, the SLM indicated that the structural attributes have an impact on the rental prices of neighboring apartments, configuring a contagion effect in the real estate market. The GWR model showed that there was no spatial heterogeneity in the effects of the determinants on apartment rental prices throughout the sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric car sharing is highlighted as a needed solution for reducing air pollution and the emission of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, its dissemination in many places is too slow and the market is still not profitable. This calls for research about whether electric car sharing corresponds to users' conditions and concerns. This article applies the domestication theory examining insights gained from in-depth interviews with participants joining a car-sharing trial in a low-income, suburban area with rental apartments. The aim is to understand the initial adoption of electric car sharing, focusing on the challenges facing users. The findings reveal three interrelated processes and various challenges to be considered: making the technology understandable and useful, integrating car sharing in everyday practices, and negotiations and communications about the proper way to share a car. Besides the environmental advantages of sharing, the social benefits and how it might enrich everyday life should be stressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article aimed to analyze the effects of CPC 06 (R2) - Leases adoption on the rents line of the Value-Added Statement (VAS) and on the percentage of value-added distributed as rents. Methodology: The approach of this paper is quantitative, and the data collection method is documental. The sample is composed by merchants listed on B3. Analysis of variations and Wilcoxon signed-rank test were applied on the VAS rent line and on the percentage of valueadded distributed as rents of these companies in the three-year period after (2019-2021) and before (2016-2018) the CPC 06 (R2) adoption. Results: It was identified that, after the CPC 06 (R2) adoption, there was a significant reduction in the values of the VAS rent line and in the percentage of value-added distributed as rents of the sample companies. This occurred because companies have been allocating payments of the same economic nature (compensation to third parties for the use of their capital) in three different lines in the VAS, namely rent, depreciation and interest. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicated statistically significant differences in the average value of the VAS rents line and in the average percentage of value-added distributed as rents in the three-year period after the implementation of CPC 06 (R2) compared to the previous three-year period. Contributions of the Study: The paper contributes to the literature about leases and VAS, being pioneer in the analysis of the effects of leases on this statement after the CPC 06 (R2) adoption. It also helps users of accounting information to understand the effects of leases on the VAS and properly interpret the lines affected by CPC 06 (R2). Finally, it contributes to regulatory authorities, because indicates a potential need to revise the VAS standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of FinanzRundschau is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper presents the impact of market characteristics on the rental rate of apartments and compares the levels of the offered rental rate in two selected cities: Rzeszów and Lublin. The analyses were conducted before and during Russia's aggression against Ukraine, based on residential rental offers. Data on the offer of residential premises for rent, posted on online portals in the period from November 2021, to April 2022, was used. The analyses showed an increase in rental prices in March 2022, mainly in Rzeszów, and similar correlations of the impact of characteristics on the market rental rate in both cities in relation to the area of the unit, the number of rooms, the location on the floor, the condition of the flat and the age of the building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

126 The majority of modern European legislations traditionally follows the concept of land ownership derived from Roman law. It is based on the assumption that the owner's rights are unlimited in spatial terms. Within this understanding, the spatial scope of ownership extends to open space above and below a specific part of the land's surface, delineated two-dimensionally. Several exceptions to the general underlying approach have been successively introduced in particular European legal systems in the course of historical development. These include, in the first place, building leases and apartment ownership as well as separate ownership of buildings. Furthermore, widely accepted limitations as to the vertical scope of ownership stem from specific regulations in the fields of mining law, geological law, water law and aviation law. Another manifestation of departure from the traditional concept of land ownership are legal solutions falling into the category of three-dimensional (3D) property, which is of increasing interest nowadays in view of growing needs for new forms of ownership and land use in densely built urban areas. At the core of the concept of 3D property in the strict sense lies the possibility to divide the space into distinct layers defined by horizontal and vertical planes, and to create so-called three-dimensional immovable properties which constitute independent objects of property rights. Such 3D units can serve multiple above- and underground investment purposes. Regulations regarding different models of 3D property rights have already been adopted in a number of countries in Europe and worldwide. Recently, conceptual work on layered ownership has been undertaken in Poland, which has opened a discussion in the legal scholarship on the future legislative changes to be implemented in order to introduce the notion of 3D property to domestic law. In parallel with these tendencies, the idea of 3D cadastre is being promoted. It offers 127 the possibility to register real estate objects located at different levels. Worthy of note in this regard is also the impact of the current technological advancements on increasing the investment potential of urban space through 3D property formation. This article elaborates, first, on the general concept and selected types of 3D property rights existing in national jurisdictions. Against this background, the proposal for the new legal construct of layered ownership has been discussed with particular consideration of the possible ways of adapting it to the Polish property law framework. Some of the opportunities and challenges brought about by the 3D property rights development have been then outlined in the context of extensive implementation of emerging technologies in real estate transactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rent control measures are typically in place to assist low-income households and decrease segregation. Yet, there is little empirical research on the social impact of such policies and specifically the role of how rent-controlled apartments are allocated. This study analyzes the income-distributional effects of rent control with a novel dataset that includes characteristics of those who received rent-controlled apartments between 2011 and 2016 in central Stockholm, Sweden. Specifically, this paper provides analysis of the impact of allocating apartments through a centrally managed queue with apartments from both public and private landlords. To quantify the rent subsidy, we estimate hypothetical market rents by taking the owner-occupied market as a point of deviation. We find a positive relationship between the rent subsidy and time in que. Apartments in the fourth quartile of subsidy require on average 21 years in que, while those in the first quartile require 10 years on average. There is considerably heterogeneity in the level of rent subsidy, and tenant income. Even as allocating through queuing should benefit high-income households less than allocation based on landlord preferences, we find several regressive effects. Controlling for time in queue, we find that tenants in the fourth quartile of annual income receive monthly rent subsidies that are substantially higher than renters in the first quartile of income. Similarly, rental apartments in the fourth quartile of the subsidy have older tenants with substantially higher incomes compared to less subsidized apartments. The regressive effect is driven by high earners renting larger apartments with larger absolute subsidies and being able to wait longer in queue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Marketing of Scientific & Research Organizations / Marketing Instytucji Naukowych i Badawczych is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The rise of instant buyer (iBuyer) businesses in the past years has made automated valuation models (AVMs) an important part of the property market. Although iBuyer services are in demand, large actors within the segment have reported dissatisfying profits over time. The business model is subject to adverse selection as homeowners based on their superior knowledge of their home are more likely to accept overpriced bids than underpriced bids, making the iBuyer purchase more overpriced dwellings. In this paper, we use a dataset consisting of 84,905 apartment transactions from Oslo, the Norwegian capital. We use 80% of the dataset to train three different AVMs similar to those used by iBuyers. Next, we construct some simple purchasing rules from the predictive accuracies found in the training dataset. Finally, taking the remaining 20% of the data in a test dataset, we introduce an adverse selection indicator based on accepted probability distributions and calculate the average expected resale profits per apartment for a hypothetical iBuyer. We find that adverse selection has a large negative impact on average profits for the hypothetical iBuyer. Furthermore, the simple purchasing rules are able to improve the profit by 1 percentage point per apartment when adverse selection is present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focused on testing the existence of an apartment price bubble in Hanoi (Vietnam) and on determining the factors that affected it in the period between 2010 and 2021. Using the fundamental factor approach, the authors applied VAR regression using time series data. Specifically, we used the ADF unit test to test the stationarity of the variables based on the following criteria: AIC (Akaike information criterion); LR (likelihood ratio); FPE (final prediction error); HQ (Hanan–Quinn information criterion); and Schwarz (SC) to find the optimal lag (Lag) for the model. We also applied the Granger causality test to determine the correlation between the economic variables that appeared in the model with the PR index. We present the results of the research model through the push–response function and the variance decomposition to consider and evaluate the impact of the PR index shock on itself and the other variables. The literature in this field includes many studies that are similar to this one; however, no research has been conducted that has focused on analysing whether variables, such as per capita income and the urbanisation rate, influence the formation of real estate bubbles. This focus is especially relevant in Hanoi, which is an important part of the Vietnamese real estate market. Through this study, we aimed to fill this gap and to contribute to the references on the Hanoi real estate market and its influencing factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the research is to apply a hedonic pricing model to an apartment rental market in the city of Varna, Bulgaria. This widespread model has been used extensively in the various aspects of the rental markets. The sample size of the study is 59 apartments for rent offered on the market in "Chaika" living estate in the city of Varna, published online at "ALO.bg" as of September 1, 2023. We have chosen this specific date, because at that time the market is very brisk. On one hand, the demand of the apartments increases, because of the beginning of the school year, and on the other hand, this period coincides with seasonal layoff unemployment and seasonal labor moving out of the apartments, which they have been renting for the summer jobs. The results of the study explain above 90 percent of variation in rents in Varna, emphasizing the most important factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The diffusion of COVID-19 and related containment measures practically halted tourism flows, which in many countries generate a significant share of GDP. By leveraging Airbnb data covering the main touristic destinations in Europe, we investigate the impact of the pandemic on the market for short-term rentals up to early 2021. We find that the epidemic reduced dramatically both the supply of apartments available for rents and customers' demand, with travellers cancelling many reservations and reducing new bookings even many months in advance. Accommodations relying relatively more on foreign tourism were the hardest hit and reacted by cutting prices. By exploiting the different timing of the epidemic spread across Europe and the timelines and intensity of the measures adopted to contain it, we show that government mandated restrictions had a stronger impact than the spread of the infection itself. All in all, our results point to a persistent and heterogeneous impact of COVID-19 on the accommodation industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Internationales Handelsrecht is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As a critical factor in ensuring the growth of the electronic auction (e-auction) domain, the privacy and security of the participants (sellers and buyers) must always be guaranteed. Traditionally, auction data, including participant details, are stored in a third party (auctioneer) database. This leads to a high risk of a single point of failure in terms of privacy and security. Toward this end, blockchain technology has emerged as a promising decentralized communication paradigm to address such risks. This paper presents a blockchain-based auction framework as a decentralized e-auctioning framework for location-aware services. In particular, the framework consists of three components: pre-auctioning, main auctioning, and post-auctioning processes with four algorithms. Our primary focus is on location-aware services, such as storage space rental, apartment rental, transport hire, and parking space rental. The trading volumes are expected to be high; hence, simplifying the design is a crucial requirement. In addition to the benefits of eliminating the centralized entity (the auctioneer), fees are redistributed among participants as rewards. Further, we incorporate a service quality monitoring method that ranks the services provided by participants. This ranking allows participants to determine the rank of other participants with whom they wish to trade. We have conducted several experiments to evaluate the proposed framework's cost feasibility and to ensure the ease of the business flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Virtual reality (VR), as a new type of media technology, significantly improves the audience experience with product presentation in the marketing communication field. The apartment rental market, particularly in China, has no exception in adopting VR technology in its communication strategy. VR usage has been boosted since the outbreak of COVID-19 and has become a widespread application in the global apartment rental market. Although extant studies have analyzed how real estate companies use VR technology to enhance customer experience, few studies have been made to explore the power of VR in apartment rental advertising, particularly in targeting the youth in China market. To fill this research gap, this study aims to figure out how young consumers perceive VR advertising and characteristics of VR used in apartment rental advertisements, and how VR advertising affects young consumers' intentions to rent an apartment. Design/methodology/approach: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2021 with 301 Chinese university students aged 18 to 23. All respondents were invited offline and guided to watch one selected rental advertisement with VR technology featuring an apartment of about 50 square meters and then complete a questionnaire. Findings: VR's media richness in the apartment rental advertising increases its sense of presence perceived by the survey respondents. Both VR's media richness and sense of presence positively influence respondents' attitudes toward the advertised apartment. If respondents evaluate the advertised apartment positively, they are more willing to rent the advertised apartment. Research limitations/implications: The sample size is not large enough to represent all Generation Z consumers in China. The use of the nonprobability sampling method also limits the generalizability of the study results. Practical implications: To counter the challenges created by COVID-19, apartment rental service providers and apartment owners/landlords are suggested to enhance the application of VR technology to the apartment rental advertisements to grow young consumers' interest in the advertised apartments and even their renting intention. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first quantitative study to assess young consumers' responses to VR apartment rental advertising in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rental market in Poland is underdeveloped, not subject to any statutory registers, and based primarily on small, private owners. The article estimates the duration of residential rental properties that have been reported to the listing exchange system using duration methods. Duration methods also allow the analysis to include those properties that were not rented at the time the analysis was completed, but their owners continued to report their willingness to rent. The article presents the results of the analysis of how long it takes to rent an apartment over the entire analysis period and in each year separately. The presented study is the first to examine the duration of residential real estate offerings for rent in the Polish market. Considering the entire analysis period, 25% of the reported apartments were rented in 7.3 weeks. The fastest 25% of rental offers were successful (rented) in 2019 – 4.86 weeks. The longest apartment owners waited for a tenant was in 2020 – more than 8 weeks, which was undoubtedly influenced by the lockdown of the entire country, and the change in the organization of work and study (remote work and studies, which did not require being in the city). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]