Residential choice does not only depend on properties of the dwelling, neighbourhood amenities and affordability, but is also affected by the population composition within a neighbourhood. All these attributes are capitalised in the house price. Empirically, it is not easy to disentangle the effect of the neighbourhood on house prices from the effects of the dwelling attributes. We implement an agent-based model of an urban housing market that allows us to analyse the interaction between residential choice, population composition in a neighbourhood and house prices. Agents differ in terms of education, income and group affiliation (majority vs. minority). Whereas rich agents can afford to move to preferred places, roughly 13.01% of poor minorities and 8.02% of poor majority agents are locked in their current neighbourhood. We show that a preference to live among similar neighbours has a strong competitive effect on rich households and drives up their house prices. This is not the case with a preference for status. By introducing a policy that provides agents more access to credit, we find that all population groups denote higher satisfaction levels. Poor agents show the largest improvements. The general satisfaction level across all population groups increases. However, the extra credit accessibility also drives up house prices and leads to higher wealth inequality within the city. If agents have a preference for status rather than for similarity, the effect of the overall inequality is smaller, since agents become more satisfied living in areas with less similar agents.

住宅选择不仅取决于住宅的属性、邻里设施和可负担性，还受到邻里人口构成的影响。所有这些属性都在房价中大写。根据经验，将邻里对房价的影响与住宅属性的影响区分开来并不容易。我们实施了一个基于代理的城市住房市场模型，该模型使我们能够分析住宅选择、社区人口构成和房价之间的相互作用。代理人在教育、收入和群体归属（多数与少数）方面存在差异。虽然富有的代理人可以负担得起搬到首选的地方，但大约 13.01% 的贫困少数民族和 8.02% 的贫困多数代理人被锁定在他们当前的社区。我们表明，居住在相似邻居中的偏好对富裕家庭具有强烈的竞争影响，并推高了他们的房价。偏爱地位的情况并非如此。通过引入一项为代理人提供更多信贷机会的政策，我们发现所有人群都表示更高的满意度。较差的代理显示出最大的改进。所有人群的总体满意度都有所提高。然而，额外的信贷可及性也推高了房价，并导致城市内部的财富不平等加剧。如果代理人偏好地位而不是相似性，则整体不平等的影响较小，因为代理人生活在代理人不太相似的地区会更加满意。