THE IMPACT OF CONSERVATION STATUS ON PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL PRICES IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

The redevelopment process in Singapore has been widespread over the years, with many old infrastructures demolished to make way for new, state-of-the-art buildings that adorn the city skyline. Having achieved most of its economic goals, voices for a greater rate of conservation have grown louder in recent times, bringing up the old conservation-redevelopment debate, which has been a recurring theme due to the land scarce nature of the country. Most of the structures gazetted under the conservation master plan have been government-led, leading to a growing sentiment that there should be greater participation by the public in the conservation process. Given that residential properties have a great impact on the lives of the average person and the fact that almost all the conserved housing units belong to the private residential market, this paper attempts to investigate whether conservation status is capitalised into the transaction prices of private housing, and if so the type of impact it has. A hedonic price model was utilised to carry out a linear regression of samples, consisting of transaction records of private residential properties, to quantify the impact of conservation status over a period of 15 years. The findings reveal that acquiring conservation status results in a price discount, with the magnitude of the discount less steep for houses that have been conserved for a longer period of time. The results indicate that households view conservation status as a negative housing spatial factor, suggesting the government might have to implement new policies to incentivise homeowners to put their houses up for conservation.