What are the environmental attributes of property?

Environmental attributes are the distinct but related geographic characteristics used in defining the market context in which a particular property is located.  Markets (neighborhoods) are defined by their environmental attributes, including:

• Land use – The type and intensity of land use, quality of construction, level of maintenance and other indicators of how land is used;
• Demographics – Age, income, educational attainment, household size and composition, and ethnicity of the neighborhood;
• Infrastructure – Connectivity in the form of public utilities, roads, public transportation,
• Identity – Delineation of a neighborhood on the basis of purpose of community and sense of identity of the users.

Submarkets are contiguous, non-overlapping geographic boundaries for similar commercial property types (e.g., office, retail or industrial), the workings and characteristics of which interact with the larger local market.  A submarket may be categorized by:

• Trade area – Delineation of a submarket in terms of the goods and services that are being offered in the particular geographic area;
• Third-party delineation – Proprietary submarket classification made by organizations that track local real estate activity; and
• Customized submarket delineation – Classification of a submarket based on subjective criteria dictated by an individual analyst.