The urban space production in Mid-sized cities from the new middle class demands – the importance of garages, suites, and bedrooms in Chapecó, Brazil

Abstract

This paper presents a hedonic price model for middle-class apartments in the city of Chapecó, located in Brazil. We applied a comparative method based on data provided by real estate agents through regression analysis to obtain the sales price equation. This allowed us to analyze the importance of the private area, standard of finishes, the number of garages, and the location of the apartments. We discussed these variables’ importance in a mid-sized city urban space production in particular the relation between private garages and the location of new apartments. This phenomenon could have been shaped by both public and private investments in the peripheries meanwhile the verticalization of the pericentral neighborhoods is taking place. We also discuss a consumption characteristic of the middle class based on the layout’s compartmentalization concerning the number of rooms and suites of the analyzed sample. In final considerations, one can infer that the number of rooms and number of suites has shown little explanation, and private area and standard of finishes are more relevant in the context studied.