A Comprehensive Overview Regarding the Impact of GIS on Property Valuation
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe overall quality of the article is excellent.
There is a very deep analysis of the literature.
The information presented in the article is not only interesting but also highly relevant for researchers in the valuation field and professional appraisers worldwide.
The references part is very rich.
The authors can take into account the following things:
In valuation theory and practice, the term Automated Valuation Model is well known, not Automated Valuation Method. I recommend that the authors use the first variant of the AVMs.
Show the sources of the figures.
Expand (a little) the conclusion part.
Success!
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you for your insightful feedback on our article. We are pleased to hear that you think the overall quality of the article is excellent and that you appreciate the in-depth analysis of the literature. We also appreciate your positive comments on the relevance of the information presented and the richness of the literature section.
We will of course take your suggestions into consideration:
Reviewer: ”In valuation theory and practice, the term Automated Valuation Model is well known, not Automated Valuation Method. I recommend that the authors use the first variant of the AVM”
Response We have made the necessary correction from "Automated Valuation Method" to "Automated Valuation Model".
Reviewer “Show the sources of the figures”
Answer: All figures were created by the authors and the map was created by the authors using Arcgis online. Figures 5 and 6 are adaptations based on research papers referenced. The source is mentioned under each figure.
Reviewer “Expand (a little) the conclusion part”
Response We agree that a slight expansion of the conclusion section would provide a more comprehensive summary of the key findings and implications discussed in the article. We have included additional findings to enrich the conclusion section.
Thank you again for your valuable feedback and suggestions. We strive to constantly improve the quality and relevance of our work and greatly appreciate your input. If you have any further comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to let us know.
Thank you for your extremely useful comments to improve our work!
Kind regards,
The authors
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsGeneral assessment
This review article focuses on the locational aspects of real estate valuation; it collects and analyzes the literature found in order to highlight the state of knowledge about the processing of spatial information processing in the context of real estate valuation. The authors describe their search methodology and document the results of their search in a structured form. Given the fact that using the power of geospatial analysis for real estate valuation is not yet as widespread as it could be, this work is definitely worth publishing.
Two items should be improved.
1. Figure 3. Number of papers according to the location of case study.
The Figure does not include a legend. Therefore, it is somewhat difficult to assess the Figure’s message. From what can be seen, it looks as if almost no papers if any were retrieved from Latin America, Africa, Australia and Asia, with the exception China. The number of papers from Turkey and Poland seems surprisingly high compared to the whole of Western Europe, where basically only papers from Italy and UK were found. What about countries such as France, Germany, and others? The authors should address this issue in the text, provide explanations for the assumed bias and add either a legend to the Figure or, preferably, a Table showing the number of papers for all countries.
2. Discussion section
In the ‘Discussion’ section, the authors repeat the list of four hypotheses formulated in the introduction. I miss a one by one detailed discussion of these hypotheses. Are they supported by the literature review conducted? If so, to what extent? If not, what could be the reasons for this? What conclusions can be drawn from these findings? If possible, these conclusions should be substantiated by some Figures, statistics, for instance.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you very much for your valuable comments. They have helped us a lot to improve the quality of our current work. We have considered your comments in the work as described below:
Reviewer. “The Figure does not include a legend. Therefore, it is somewhat difficult to assess the Figure’s message. From what can be seen, it looks as if almost no papers if any were retrieved from Latin America, Africa, Australia and Asia, with the exception China. The number of papers from Turkey and Poland seems surprisingly high compared to the whole of Western Europe, where basically only papers from Italy and UK were found. What about countries such as France, Germany, and others? The authors should address this issue in the text, provide explanations for the assumed bias and add either a legend to the Figure or, preferably, a Table showing the number of papers for all countries”
Response. We apologize for the oversight regarding the legend to Figure 3. We have corrected this issue by adding a legend to the figure. We have also provided additional explanations on the distribution of contributions from the different countries. (lines 219-227). Apart from the impact of the subprime crisis, the number of articles dealing with the topic of valuation using GIS varies from country to country due to research priorities and financial resources. The low number of articles on this topic could, in some cases, be due not only to the fact that they were not as affected by the subprime crisis, but also to factors such as: local legislation, economic priorities, research priorities, the number of training programs in GIS, but also to the fact that researchers prefer to publish in their native language, which would reduce their presence in international publications.
Reviewer.” In the ‘Discussion’ section, the authors repeat the list of four hypotheses formulated in the introduction. I miss a one by one detailed discussion of these hypotheses. Are they supported by the literature review conducted? If so, to what extent? If not, what could be the reasons for this? What conclusions can be drawn from these findings? If possible, these conclusions should be substantiated by some Figures, statistics, for instance”
Response. We have revised the discussion to provide a detailed examination of each hypothesis and its support from the literature review. We have outlined the extent to which each hypothesis is supported by the literature and discussed any discrepancies or limitations. As a suggestion from another reviewer, we renamed the hypothesis as assumptions.
Thank you for your extremely useful comments to improve our work!
Kind regards yours,
Authors
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript is a review article offering a summary of research on the topic of the application of Geographic Information System (GIS) in real estate valuation. I believe it should be published as the authors provide a comprehensive overview of the current thinking on this topic and the methodologies used in the field - it can be a useful resource for other researchers.
I have some suggestions for improvements before publication:
· The authors mention 4 hypotheses in the Introduction (lines 118 – 128) and in the Discussion (lines 619 – 629). I would suggest that they avoid calling them hypotheses as it may be somewhat misleading: these 4 statements are very broad and general, and as such are difficult to verify. I would recommend calling them findings and placing them in the Discussion section only.
· The authors mention several times that it was important to mitigate the subjectivity of traditional valuation methods. I would appreciate it if the authors could elaborate a little more on the importance of that need.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThere are some minor grammar mistakes in the text: 1) line 330 - “… a building is part of the cultural heritage…” instead of “… building is a part of the cultural heritage…”; 2) line 332 – “… how does the location in cultural-historical sites influence the price of…” instead of “how does the location in cultural-historical sites influences the price of properties…”
Clear figures belong to the strong points of the manuscript, however Figure 8 requires some minor changes:
1) “Model based on…” instead of “Model base on…”,2) “Mathematics-based model” instead of “Matematical based model”, 3) The inscriptions on the right: “Model evaluation” and especially “Pricing & Geovisualization”, are difficult to read.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thank you for your positive feedback on our manuscript and for your suggestions for its improvement. We are pleased to hear that you found the manuscript to be a comprehensive overview of research on the application of Geographic Information System (GIS) in real estate valuation
Reviewer “The authors mention 4 hypotheses in the Introduction (lines 118 – 128) and in the Discussion (lines 619 – 629). I would suggest that they avoid calling them hypotheses as it may be somewhat misleading: these 4 statements are very broad and general, and as such are difficult to verify. I would recommend calling them findings and placing them in the Discussion section only”
Response: We appreciate your recommendation and we renamed the hypothesis as assumptions (in Introduction) and we referred to them as statements in Discussion, since your observation that they are very general is true.
Reviewer “The authors mention several times that it was important to mitigate the subjectivity of traditional valuation methods. I would appreciate it if the authors could elaborate a little more on the importance of that need.”
Response: We note your suggestion to focus more on the importance of mitigating the subjectivity of traditional assessment methods. Therefore, we have added a further explanation to provide a clearer understanding and why this is important in the context of real estate valuation (lines 64-67)
Thank you for your extremely useful comments to improve our work!
Kind regards,
Authors
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsMain comment:
I am usually a strong advocate for literature review studies, but I didn't learn anything from this one. Yes, there has been a selection of studies to include, following an acceptable recipe, but little has been done to make the study reader-friendly beyond that. I believe I would have learned significantly more by spending time conducting literature searches myself than by reading this article.
Minor comments:
Remember to define all abbreviations the first time they are used. It would be helpful if there is a connection between how the article is motivated and its content.
There are almost as many studies excluded due to lack of access as there are works included in the text; this is not a good starting point. Since much of the systematic work done afterward is related to the distribution of the works, it would be useful for the reader to know where the articles the authors did not have access to belong (type of journals, field of study, or similar).
It is common, or at least not unusual, to add new articles found based on the reading of the texts.
The maps used in the article are very uninformative. At a minimum, there should be numbers next to the dots, but probably this information would be better presented as tables. This also applies to several other figures; use tables instead to present knowledge from the analysis that goes beyond counting.
Figure 4, present both as a number and as a percentage.
If valuation is to be a main theme of the article, I would separate Mass appraisal and AVM into two different groups, where mass appraisals are restricted to cases where one is interested in values at the group level.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsIn my opinion, the article is not suitable for publication. The authors have made a breakneck attempt to review the literature on applying GIS in property valuation. In my opinion, not entirely successful. The article, in my opinion, does not meet the conditions of a sound scientific paper for several reasons:
1. In this type of study, bibliometric analysis is usually applied, including, among others, the number and index of citations or qualitative and quantitative journal indices. Such an analysis would make it possible to assess existing trends and the relevance of ongoing research. Contrary to the authors' opinion, the article does not present an analysis of the existing knowledge but only offers cursory information about selected articles on GIS issues in property valuation. Not even an attempt was made to discuss the content of the articles.
2. Thousands of valuable articles on GIS have been written since 1993, including hundreds covering the issues of market price analysis and property valuation. I understand that articles were searched based on keywords, but I have doubts that these keywords were chosen correctly. In many cases where the influence of spatial factors on property prices is examined, the use of GIS tools is so evident that the authors omit this keyword and focus on words describing the problem or a specific method. Based on such a small collection of 89 articles published over 30 years, in addition to thematically divergent ones, it isn't easy to reliably assess trends in research on GIS applications in property valuation.
3. The thematic scope of the cited studies is too diverse. On the one hand, it concerns valuation methodology and, on the other hand, a variety of spatial factors influencing prices and areas of application, not necessarily directly related to property valuation. It isn't easy to find a common denominator here.
4. The period of the articles in question is 30 years. Many of the cited articles were of high scientific value at the time of publication. Nowadays, the content can, in many cases, be regarded as "historical" knowledge. I have doubts about the timeliness of some of the studies, especially relating to innovative approaches.
5. It is easy to see that the information cited is taken only from the abstracts, which gives the impression that the authors did not reach for the full texts in which discussion, constructive criticism and relevant research conclusions are included. Hence, the scientific value of the article review presented in this way is low. For example, given the purpose of the reviewed article, the reader is given little, for instance, by the information that "In a paper [84], researchers from Romania point out the need to use geospatial data in the valuation process and identify factors that influence the decision-making process in order to create a real estate map for Cluj-Napoca." [864-866]. Another example is that "Various GIS applications, including detection of changes in land use and land cover, have been used to analyse the evolution of urban sprawl over time and its impact on land values in Madurai, Tamilnadu [10]." [748-750].
6. The hypotheses presented [99-109] are relatively self-evident and constitute the canon of general knowledge regarding the determinants of determining the market value of real estate.
