Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359

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Data in Brief

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/dib

Data Article

Real estate data to analyse the relationship

between property prices, sustainability levels
and socio-economic indicators
Franz Fuerst a,∗, Michel Ferreira Cardia Haddad a
a
Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 9EP, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Recent studies have sought to explore the relationship be-
Received 3 July 2020 tween environmental and financial performance, in particu-
Revised 23 September 2020 lar the relationship between the energy efficiency level of
Accepted 23 September 2020 a building and its financial value. The present real estate
Available online 6 October 2020
dataset contains 43 variables of repeat sales transactions, en-
ergy performance certificate (EPC) rating, index of multiple
Keywords:
deprivation (IMD), and geographical location of properties
Energy performance certificate
Hedonic pricing
in England and Wales involved in a total of 4,201 transac-
Index of multiple deprivation tions from 1995 to 2012. This dataset enables researchers and
Real estate practitioners to further explore important questions regard-
Sustainability ing the nexus between the real estate industry, sustainabil-
ity levels, and socio-economic aspects. Due to the scarcity
of publicly available quality real estate data, the dataset de-
tailed in this article may play a relevant role by becoming
easily discoverable, clearly explained, and structured to be
ready to be used by researchers, analysts, and policymak-
ers. The empirical analysis of the economic case for energy-
efficient dwellings in the UK private rental market performed
in Fuerst, et al. [1] is based on this dataset.
© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc.
This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118642

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (F. Fuerst).
Social media: (M.F.C. Haddad)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2020.106359
2352-3409/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
2 F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359

Specifications Table

Subject Economics and Finance

Specific subject area Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

Type of data Table
How data were acquired The data is publicly available from UK governmental sources
Data format Raw, analysed/derived
Parameters for data collection As the focus of this dataset is on repeat sales in the housing market,
then an original larger dataset (which source is the Her Majesty’s Land
Registry), with all property sale transactions, was filtered to select only
the cases in which the property was sold no less than two times, where
at least one of the transactions was recorded after August 2008 (when
EPCs became mandatory for residential properties in the United
Kingdom). All remaining observations were excluded from the original
dataset.
Moreover, observations with incomplete data were discarded. There is
no missing data in this dataset.
Description of data collection Data were manual and directly extracted from the web address of each
of the on-line data sources and, after data pre-treatments (e.g. filtering,
merging), transformed into comma-separated values (CSV) file format
Data source location Institutions: Her Majesty’s Land Registry, Domestic Energy Performance
Certificate Register, and Office for National Statistics (ONS)
Country: United Kingdom
Data accessibility Dataset supplied with this article paper
Related research article Author’s names: Franz Fuerst, Michel Ferreira Cardia Haddad, Hassan
Adan
Title: Is there an economic case for energy-efficient dwellings in the UK
private rental market?
Journal: Journal of Cleaner Production
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.118642

Value of the Data

• This dataset provides extensive information on residential sales transactions in England along
with socio-economic indicators and property-level characteristics, notably on energy effi-
ciency. While the underlying individual databases are mostly available in the public domain,
this data adds value because it offers researchers an integrated ready-to-use dataset.
• Academic researchers will be able to glean important insights into the dynamics between
property prices and other important features such as a geographical area’s deprivation status
or a property’s energy efficiency level. Practitioners may apply this dataset to obtain market
insights and/or for training purposes.
• A further possibility is the analysis of property price appreciation between two sales trans-
actions to investigate how the market pricing of individual property features as well as sus-
tainability and socio-economic indicators have changed during the study period.
• This dataset contains a number of additional derived variables for each property, ready to
be used by researchers and practitioners, for example in hedonic pricing or other regression
models.

1. Data Description

The present dataset focusses on a crucial industry of the economy (i.e. real estate), containing
43 variables related to 4,201 repeat sales transactions from 1995 to 2012, the respective energy
performance certificate (EPC) rating, index of multiple deprivation (IMD), and geographical loca-
tion of properties located in England and Wales. The empirical analysis of Fuerst, et al. [1] on the
economic case for energy-efficient dwellings in the UK private rented sector (PRS) is based on
 F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359 3

this dataset. Rental data which were obtained from HomeCo Internet Property Ltd for analysing
the effects of energy efficiency on PRS properties in that article are proprietary and, therefore,
not considered here. Apart from this limitation, all relevant variables are described and made
available with this article.
This dataset intends to provide relevant information to researchers and practitioners, allow-
ing them to explore important questions involving the topics of real estate, sustainability lev-
els, and socio-economic conditions. This dataset contains four variable groups (i.e. repeat sales
transactions, EPC, IMD, and geographical location), which are detailed in following subsections.
In total, there are 176,442 data points, excluding the identification variable (id), which variables
are detailed in Table 1. There are no missing observations in this dataset.
The dataset is prepared to facilitate future analyses. Six variables are derived/ calculated from
raw variables, such as the natural logarithm (log henceforth) of transaction prices, the log of the
standard assessment procedure (SAP) points assigned to each property, and the difference in
days from the first to the second sale transaction. Moreover, the variables regarding the EPC
band and geographical location are transformed into Boolean variables for usability purposes
(e.g. regression analysis estimation).

1.1. Repeat sales transactions variables

There are eight variables detailing each of the 4,201 repeat sales transactions, being four raw
and four derived variables, out of which six are numerical and two are categorical (i.e. date)
variables. The four raw variables consist of the prices (in pound sterling) and dates of the first
and second property sale transactions. Moreover, the four derived variables refer to the natu-
ral log of the prices of the first and second property sale transactions, the percentual change
between such prices, and the time length (in days) between both transactions. The descriptive
statistics of the six numerical variables are reported in Table 2.
In summary, the statistics in Table 2 show that the log price of the first transaction
(ln_price_1) is the only variable with negative skewness, although it is almost negligible. More-
over, all variables have kurtosis above three, except by the days_between_sale variable. Such data
characteristics are depicted in Fig. 1, in which histograms confirm the descriptive statistics re-
ported in Table 2.
In addition, the histograms shown in Fig. 1 confirm, through a data visualisation approach,
the results of the Shapiro-Francia normality tests reported in Table 2, that these variables are
not drawn from a normal distribution.

1.2. Energy performance certificate (EPC) variables

An energy performance certificate (EPC) consists of a rating measure that seeks to succinctly
describe energy efficiency levels of real estate properties in the European Union. In the year
of 2008, this measurement system is adopted by England and Wales. Based on such a rating
measure, there are seven EPC bands, ranging from band A (i.e. the most efficient) to band G (i.e.
the least efficient) [2]. Moreover, an EPC must be provided by the landlord before a property
may be rented or sold [3,4].
In the present dataset there are nine variables related to EPC, out of which seven are Boolean
variables. In terms of EPC ratings based on the standard assessment procedure (SAP) points,
Table 3 shows that the majority of the properties involved in the repeat sales transactions are
assigned as EPC bands C and D, corresponding to almost 70% of the total in the dataset. The
third EPC band with most cases is band E, totalling almost 700 properties (i.e. around 17% of the
dataset), followed by band B, with almost 10% of the dataset. In addition, in this dataset there
is no property assigned as band A, and approximately 5% of the properties are assigned to the
two least efficient bands (i.e. F and G), totalling around 200 properties.
Table 1

4
Details of each of the 43 variables in the dataset

Variable name (sic) Variable context Variable type Data category Data type Description Source

id Identification Derived Categorical Nominal Identification number assigned to each Own elaboration
transaction in this dataset
price_1 Transactional Raw Numerical Discrete Property price, in pound sterling, paid in Her Majesty’s Land Registry
the first sale transaction
date_1 Transactional Raw Categorical Ordinal Date (format: dd/mm/yyyy) of the first Her Majesty’s Land Registry
sale transaction
price_2 Transactional Raw Numerical Discrete Property price, in pound sterling, paid in Her Majesty’s Land Registry
the second sale transaction

F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359

date_2 Transactional Raw Categorical Ordinal Date (format: dd/mm/yyyy) of the second Her Majesty’s Land Registry
sale transaction
perc_change_p2_to_p1 Transactional Derived Numerical Continuous Change, in percent, from the property Own elaboration
price paid in the first (price_1) to the
second (price_2) sale transaction
days_between_sale Transactional Derived Numerical Discrete Period of time, in days, from the first Own elaboration
(date_1) to the second (date_2) sale
transaction
ln_price_1 Transactional Derived Numerical Continuous Natural logarithm of the variable price_1 Own elaboration
ln_price_2 Transactional Derived Numerical Continuous Natural logarithm of the variable price_2 Own elaboration
epc_100 Sustainability Raw Numerical Discrete Standard assessment procedure (SAP) Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
points assigned to the property, ranging Government
from 1 to 100 (where 1 is the least
efficient)
epc_rating_a Sustainability Raw Categorical Boolean Property with EPC rating assigned as band Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
A (92-100 SAP points) when the value Government
is 1 and 0 otherwise
epc_rating_b Sustainability Raw Categorical Boolean Property with EPC rating assigned as band Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
B (81-91 SAP points) when the value is Government
1 and 0 otherwise
epc_rating_c Sustainability Raw Categorical Boolean Property with EPC rating assigned as band Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
C (69-80 SAP points) when the value is Government
1 and 0 otherwise
epc_rating_d Sustainability Raw Categorical Boolean Property with EPC rating assigned as band Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
D (55-68 SAP points) when the value is Government
1 and 0 otherwise
epc_rating_e Sustainability Raw Categorical Boolean Property with EPC rating assigned as band Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
E (39-54 SAP points) when the value is Government
1 and 0 otherwise
(continued on next page)
Table 1 (continued)

Variable name (sic) Variable context Variable type Data category Data type Description Source

epc_rating_f Sustainability Raw Categorical Boolean Property with EPC rating assigned as band Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
F (21-38 SAP points) when the value is Government
1 and 0 otherwise
epc_rating_g Sustainability Raw Categorical Boolean Property with EPC rating assigned as band Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
G (1-20 SAP points) when the value is 1 Government
and 0 otherwise
ln_epc_100 Sustainability Derived Numerical Continuous Natural logarithm of the variable epc_100 Own elaboration
imd_score Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Index of multiple deprivation (IMD) rank Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local

F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359

(where 1 is most deprived) assigned to Government
the property
imd_level Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Index of multiple deprivation (IMD) decile Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
(where 1 is most deprived 10% of Government
LSOAs) assigned to the property
income_score Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Income deprivation rank (where 1 is most Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
deprived) assigned to the property Government
income_level Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Income deprivation decile (where 1 is Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
most deprived 10% of LSOAs) assigned Government
to the property
emp_score Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Employment deprivation rank (where 1 is Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
most deprived) assigned to the property Government
emp_level Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Employment deprivation decile (where 1 Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
is most deprived 10% of LSOAs) Government
assigned to the property
educ_score Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Education skills and training deprivation Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
rank (where 1 is most deprived) Government
assigned to the property
educ_level Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Education skills and training deprivation Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
decile (where 1 is most deprived 10% of Government
LSOAs) assigned to the property
health_score Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Health deprivation and disability rank Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
(where 1 is most deprived) assigned to Government
the property
health_level Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Health deprivation and disability decile Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
(where 1 is most deprived 10% of Government
LSOAs) assigned to the property
crime_score Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Crime rank (where 1 is most deprived) Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
assigned to the property Government
(continued on next page)

5
 6
Table 1 (continued)

Variable name (sic) Variable context Variable type Data category Data type Description Source

crime_level Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Crime decile (where 1 is most deprived Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
10% of LSOAs) assigned to the property Government
barrier_score Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Barriers to housing and services rank Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
(where 1 is most deprived) assigned to Government
the property
barrier_level Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Barriers to housing and services decile Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
(where 1 is most deprived 10% of Government

F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359

LSOAs) assigned to the property
living_score Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Living environment deprivation rank Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
(where 1 is most deprived) assigned to Government
the property
living_level Socio-economic Raw Numerical Discrete Living environment deprivation decile Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
(where 1 is most deprived 10% of Government
LSOAs) assigned to the property
reg_north_east Geography Raw Categorical Boolean Property located in the North East region Office for National Statistics
when the value is 1 and 0 otherwise
reg_north_west Geography Raw Categorical Boolean Property located in the North West region Office for National Statistics
when the value is 1 and 0 otherwise
reg_yorkshire_and_the_humber Geography Raw Categorical Boolean Property located in the Yorkshire and the Office for National Statistics
Humber region when the value is 1 and
0 otherwise
reg_east_midlands Geography Raw Categorical Boolean Property located in the East Midlands Office for National Statistics
region when the value is 1 and 0
otherwise
reg_west_midlands Geography Raw Categorical Boolean Property located in the West Midlands Office for National Statistics
region when the value is 1 and 0
otherwise
reg_east_of_england Geography Raw Categorical Boolean Property located in the East of England Office for National Statistics
region when the value is 1 and 0
otherwise
reg_london Geography Raw Categorical Boolean Property located in the London region Office for National Statistics
when the value is 1 and 0 otherwise
reg_south_east Geography Raw Categorical Boolean Property located in the South East region Office for National Statistics
when the value is 1 and 0 otherwise
reg_south_west Geography Raw Categorical Boolean Property located in the South West region Office for National Statistics
when the value is 1 and 0 otherwise
Source: own elaboration
 F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359 7

Table 2
Descriptive statistics of the numerical variables directly related to the property sale transactions

Variable Mean Median Std. Dev. Skewness Kurtosis Smallest Largest Obs Normal

price_1 120,190.90 10 0,0 0 0.0 0 189,750.50 23.97 693.03 6,0 0 0.0 0 5,660,0 0 0.0 0 4,201 0.0 0 0 01
price_2 154,575.30 120,0 0 0.0 0 263,755.50 24.50 709.91 25,0 0 0.0 0 7,90 0,0 0 0.0 0 4,201 0.0 0 0 01
ln_price_1 11.46 11.51 0.65 -0.01 4.65 8.70 15.55 4,201 0.0 0 0 01
ln_price_2 11.75 11.70 0.52 1.16 8.02 10.13 15.88 4,201 0.0 0 0 01
perc_change_p2_to_p1 0.50 0.20 0.83 3.13 22.93 -0.62 10.42 4,201 0.0 0 0 01
days_between_sale 2,400.08 2,196.00 1,236.92 0.56 2.68 187.00 6,156.00 4,201 0.0 0 0 01

Source: own elaboration

Note: the header described as ‘Normal’ refers to the Shapiro-Francia normality test. The null hypothesis is that the data
follows a Gaussian distribution.

Fig. 1. Distributions of the log price paid in the first (upper left hand side) and second (upper right hand side) property
sale transactions, price variation between the first and second sale transaction (bottom left hand side), and period of
time from the first to the second transaction (bottom right hand side)
Source: Source: own elaboration

Table 3
Frequency and fraction of the seven EPC bands

EPC band Frequency Fraction

EPC A 0 0.00
EPC B 379 0.09
EPC C 1,442 0.34
EPC D 1,480 0.35
EPC E 699 0.17
EPC F 162 0.04
EPC G 39 0.01
Total 4,201 1.00

Source: own elaboration

8 F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359

Fig. 2. Histogram (left hand side) and box plot (right hand side) of the distribution of the SAP points
Source: Source: own elaboration

By breaking down the EPC band classification in terms of the SAP points, it is possible to
realise that most cases are within the range between 60 and 80 SAP points, totalling 2,520 ob-
servations, corresponding to 60% of the cases in the dataset, as depicted in Fig. 2.
In terms of potential outliers, the box plot in Fig. 2 shows that there are few observations
containing properties with SAP points assigned below the value of 37. More precisely, there are
150 cases (4% of the dataset) below two standard deviations from the mean of 64 points, 47
cases (1% of the dataset) below three standard deviations from the mean, and still nine cases
(0.5% of the dataset) below four standard deviations from the mean.

1.3. Index of multiple deprivation (IMD) variables

The index of multiple deprivation (IMD) is used in the United Kingdom to rank relative de-
privation levels assigned to each of the geographical locations classified as a Lower Layer Super
Output Area (LSOA). Besides the IMD – which is an overall measure, area characteristics based
on the LSOA levels include seven domains, consisting of barriers to housing and services, crime,
quality of schooling (i.e. education, skills and training), employment, health and disability, in-
come, and living environment [5]. Dwellings located in the 10% most deprived neighbourhoods
are in the bottom decile (i.e. IMD decile equals to 1 in Fig. 3) and, conversely, those in the 10%
least deprived neighbourhoods are in the top decile (i.e. IMD decile equals to 10 in Fig. 3).
In general, the properties in the dataset appear to be distributed roughly evenly across all
overall deprivation levels. However, it is worth noting that the first IMD decile has considerably
fewer absolute cases compared to the remaining respective deciles, as depicted in Fig. 3. Ap-
proximately 6% of properties are in the worst IMD deprivation Level 1 and, conversely, 9% of
properties are in the decile of least deprived neighbourhoods.
In both cases (i.e. the IMD and its seven domains), the data are measured in two units, con-
sisting of deprivation ranks/ scores and also respective deciles/ levels, affording the analyst a
greater level of flexibility and freedom for data reusability purposes. Regarding the remaining
seven domains values, properties from all deprivation levels (i.e. from 1 to 10) are included in
the dataset, which is a relevant aspect from a data and sample representativeness point of view.

1.4. Geographical location variables

The geographical distribution of the properties involved in the repeat sales transactions in-
cluded in this dataset follows the classification adopted by the Office for National Statistics
 F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359 9

Fig. 3. Histograms (left hand side) and bar charts (right hand side) of the IMD and its seven domains, considering their
ranks and deciles, respectively
Source: Source: own elaboration

(ONS), totalling nine regions (formerly kwon as ‘government offices for the regions’ or GOR).
The regions with most transactions are North West, Yorkshire and The Humber, and West Mid-
lands, which combined correspond to around 54% of the transactions in the dataset, as reported
in Table 4. Conversely, the regions with the least number of transactions are South West, East
of England, and North East, which combined represent less than 20% of the transactions in the
dataset.
The geographical distribution of the dataset is also compared with the population distribution
of England and Wales [6]. Despite some disparities, the distribution of the transactions in the
dataset may be considered as a representative sample.
10 F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359

Fig. 3. Continued

Table 4
Geographical distribution of the transactions included in the dataset

Geography Transactions frequency Transactions fraction Population fraction

North West 840 0.20 0.13

Yorkshire and The Humber 839 0.20 0.10
West Midlands 599 0.14 0.11
East Midlands 435 0.10 0.09
South East 407 0.10 0.16
London 361 0.09 0.16
South West 287 0.07 0.10
East of England 279 0.07 0.11
North East 154 0.04 0.05
Total 4,201 1.00 1.00

Source: own elaboration

 F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359 11

Fig. 3. Continued

2. Experimental Design, Materials and Methods to Acquire the Data

Data from a variety of publicly available sources are extracted, filtered, and merged through
a three step process, following the protocol for data collection depicted in Fig. 4. In the first
step, data on market prices and transaction dates are manually extracted from the Her Majesty’s
Land Registry on-line database, comprising residential transaction prices submitted in the pe-
riod between 1995 and 2012. A filter is applied to this larger dataset (with all property sales
transactions) to select only properties that were sold at least twice, in which at least one of
the transactions is recorded after August 2008, when EPCs became mandatory for residential
properties in the United Kindgom.
In the second step, information related to the EPC is manually extracted from the Domestic
Energy Performance Certificate Register (under the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local
Government) on-line database, which is then merged, through full address matching, with the
dataset previously produced in the first step.
In the third step, the dataset is enhanced by adding socio-economic data (i.e. the IMD and
its seven domains), which are manually extracted from the ONS postcode directory and then
subsequenty merged, through LSOA matching, with the dataset previously produced in the sec-
ond step. In order to ensure a representative sample, observations across hundreds of different
neighbourhoods in England and Wales are obtained via a stratified random draw.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare no competing financial interests or any other interests that might be
perceived to influence the results and/or discussion reported in this data article.
12 F. Fuerst and M.F.C. Haddad / Data in Brief 33 (2020) 106359

Fig. 4. Flowchart of the protocol for data collection

Source: Source: own elaboration

Acknowledgments

The authors thank to the journal managing editor and anonymous reviewers for their careful
reading and suggestions. All remaining errors are authors’ responsibility.

Funding Sources

This research was supported by the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strat-
egy and Grant H2020-EE-2014-2015 of the European Commission. Furthermore, Franz Fuerst
wishes to thank the Cambridge University Land Society (CULS) for continuous support of his
research and Michel F. C. Haddad acknowledges funding from the Coordination for the Improve-
ment of Higher Education Personnel of Brazil (CAPES) and from The Cambridge Commonwealth,
European & International Trust, under the grant/award BEX 2220/15-6.

Supplementary Materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found in the online version at
doi:10.1016/j.dib.2020.106359.

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