Spatial Statistics and Real Estate

Real estate has historically employed statistical tools designed for independent observations while simultaneously noting the violation of these assumptions in the form of clustering of same sign residuals by neighborhood, along roads, and near facilities such as airports. Spatial statistics takes these dependencies into account to provide more realistic inference (OLS has biased standard errors), better prediction, and more efficient parameter estimation. This article provides an overview of the field and directs readers to the relevant literature and software.