ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a data collection method for urban housing research using web crawler programming. The crawling procedure enables researchers to collect massive Internet-based housing data in a cost and effective manner. An example based on one of the largest Chinese online real estate marketplaces is adopted to illustrate the data collection procedure. Data characteristics and applications are demonstrated through hedonic price analysis with applications on different housing markets in China. Although the demonstration is based on an ad hoc database, the web-crawling procedure for online data collection has a broad application and can be implemented on various programming platforms. The chapter concludes with discussions about key issues related to data validation and the legality of web crawling, and as well as directions for future research.
