Housing Suitability analysis of vacant office buildings

The demand for housing in the Netherlands is growing faster than expected and at the same time a big amount of office buildings are vacant. To avoid housing shortage in urban areas, conversion of vacant office buildings into housing is one possible solution. While adaptation and renovation of vacant buildings can prove to be a successful real estate strategy, still there is little knowledge about the opportunities and risks of building conversion. This thesis reveals how fixed attributes of a building, such as location and physical appearance, affects the housing choice preferences of different target groups and how real estate professionals can adapt the office buildings to promote different target groups to move in the converted building. In this research, a questionnaire was designed containing a Stated choice experiment (SC) to simulate the decision-making process of respondents when choosing apartments. Data was collected from different regions of the Netherlands but mostly from the North Brabant region, then it was analyzed using a Multinomial logit model (MNL) that revealed the housing preferences of different target groups. These results where later used to create a tool that could support municipalities, investors, and real estate professionals in their decision-making process by revealing what target groups are the best fit for the future housing project and how vacant office buildings can be adapted to satisfied the future tenant demands and successfully convert office buildings into residential buildings.