DO HOME UPGRADING SCHEMES ENCOURAGE ADDITIONAL HOME RENOVATIONS BY HDB OWNERS?

Abstract

This paper focuses the influence of publicly subsidised government incentives, specifically the Home Improvement Programme (HIP), on the maintenance choice of the homeowners. It is a vital concern to thoroughly scrutinise on the positive triggering effects that HIP could bring upon the homeowners and amplify these advantages on other estates.

As such, two groups have been identified to carry out the experiment. Dwellings in the estates that have undergone HIP are named as treatment group while those that have not as control group. Having a control group is to provide a contrast to the contribution of the analysis result.

The triggering effect of HIP on the housing maintenance behaviour turns out to be positive for the treatment group whose level of satisfaction is also higher, as compared to the control group. HIP sufficiently forms as a source of motivation to induce the residents to carry out maintenance work on their own with a greater likelihood of increasing the probability of the homeowners doing further maintenance works with government incentives. However, social influence is a relatively insignificant factor to explain the maintenance behaviour of the homeowners.

Nonetheless, control group has clearly more residents who have resided longer in the estate than the treatment group, whereas there is higher percentage of younger population staying in the treatment group than in control group, which shows that the vibrancy of the neighbourhood has risen with the rejuvenation of new and younger residents with the injection of HIP.