COLUMBARIUM AS A REAL ESTATE BUSINESS - HOW GRAVE IS THE FENG SHUI FACTOR?

Abstract

With a rapidly ageing population and a rising proportion of elderly residents to 19% by 2030, the demand for death spaces in Singapore is projected to spike in the near future. Given the government’s intention to increase the population to 6.9 million people by 2030, existing burial grounds might be redeveloped for other uses such as housing. It is therefore important that land-use policy should ensure sufficient alternative death spaces to meet the needs of its citizens. This research paper provides a framework to better understand consumers’ preferences for private columbarium death spaces. Using a survey-based approach, it examines public awareness of private columbarium death spaces and factors considered by consumers when purchasing columbarium niches. As Feng Shui could be a dominant consideration, this study also investigates in depth its influence on consumers’ behaviour. Both the T-test and binary logistic regression suggest that Feng Shui is a statistically significant factor. The T-test shows that the mean scores achieved for the Feng Shui factor between the two groups of respondents (having the intention to purchase/already purchased as opposed to having no intention to purchase) are statistically different. The binary logistic regression also corroborates this finding given that a believer of Feng Shui is about 8.0 times more likely to purchase a private columbarium niche over a public columbarium niche. Another interesting finding of this research is that most respondents focused more on the application of Feng Shui for a columbarium niche rather than the entire columbarium building. In this connection, most respondents deem orientation facing, location level, and lot number as important. Using the contingency valuation approach, respondents who have the intention to purchase or have already purchased a private columbarium niche are willing to pay a price premium of around 13% (as a fraction of the total price) for desirable Feng Shui features. The empirical findings thus suggest that it would be viable for a developer to venture into the columbarium business to cater to citizens from the Buddhist and Taoist religion group. With rising affluence, consumers are expected to be willing to spend more on death spaces.