IMPACTS OF AESTHETIC HDB DESIGNS ON SURROUNDING HDB RESALE PRICES

Abstract

As the emphasis on good housing designs gain traction worldwide, the Singapore government, too, takes proactive measures to incorporate fanciable design features. In view of HDB’s commitment in ensuring vibrancy of towns (HDB, 2019), newer flats are innovatively designed and an increasing number of aesthetic public housing designs have attained the HDB Design Awards in recent years. However, empirical evidence on the impacts of aesthetic public housing designs on surrounding resale prices is still scant and the designs of HDB flats still pale in comparison to its private housing counterpart. Therefore, this study aims to enhance existing literature and encourage more innovative HDB designs. In this study, winners of the HDB Design Awards are used as proxies for aesthetic HDB designs in the Singapore context. The findings show that HDB resale units within the treatment group (i.e. 300 metres of an aesthetic HDB design project) command a 4.9% price premium after the conferment date of the HDB Design Awards, compared to resale units within the control group (i.e. 300 to 600 metres range). In addition, the conferment date of the HDB Design Awards increases HDB resale prices from 0.38% to 4.9% for units in the treatment group. The spatial variations analysis proves that immediate distance from an aesthetic HDB design project is more valued by homebuyers as compared to immediate distance from a shopping mall. This is represented by the relatively sharp decline of 46.7% in resale price premiums for units within the 300 to 600 metres range of an aesthetic HDB design, in contrast with the decline of 26.0% in resale price premiums for units in the same distance range of a shopping mall. The findings of this study have important implications on the future of public housing designs for relevant stakeholders including policy makers, developers, architectural consultants and design educators. The existence of significant results from this local study would push for greater resources on the design awards for public housing and spur more creative design initiatives amongst architectural consultants.