HAWKER CENTRES AND UNESCO TITLE: DOES IT AFFECT HDB PRICES?

Abstract

Hawker centres play an integral role in Singapore’s culture by creating opportunities for interactions, forge bonds, and unify a racially diverse community. In recent year, Singapore’s hawker culture entered into the prestigious UNESCO Heritage List, boasting instant international recognition. Although hawker centres are often found within heartland areas to provide convenience for residents living in the vicinity, yet it also led to certain degree of unhappiness due to hygiene and cleanliness issues. Thus, this paper seeks to explore the impact that hawker centres, with its newly minted UNESCO title, have on resale HDB prices. Firstly, an Ordinary Least Square multiple regression was carried out to determine the effects of distance and presence of hawker centres on HDB resale prices. Following that, Difference-in-Differences (DID) analyses were utilized to strengthen findings. The first DID explores the announcement effect of upcoming hawker centres on HDB resale prices while subsequent DID focuses on the impact of the UNESCO inscription of Singapore’s hawker culture on HDB resale prices. The study concludes that price premiums are assigned to HDBs located closer to hawker centres where units located within 200m to a hawker centre enjoy 7.56% price increase but decreases gradually for every 200m increase in distance. Areas with more hawker centres further enjoy 1.55% price increase. Furthermore, HDB prices within 600m of upcoming hawker centres also went up by approximately 2.39% after news of the hawker centres’ locations were announced. Lastly, after Singapore’s hawker culture gained the UNESCO Heritage title, HDBs within 600m to the nearest hawker centre see its price rise by 1.42% where newer and smaller HDB units see their price appreciate more than its counterparts.