Impacts of urban environmental elements on residential housing prices in Guangzhou (China)

The amenity value provided by urban green spaces, water bodies and good environmental quality is difficult to assess and incorporate into urban planning and development. Developers and governments in China hitherto have seldom objectively factored these attributes into property pricing and associated decisions. The hedonic pricing method offers an appropriate approach to gauge such external benefits which contribute to real-estate transaction prices. This study explored the impacts of key environmental elements with a bearing on residential housing value in Guangzhou, including window orientation, green-space view, floor height, proximity to wooded areas and water bodies, and exposure to traffic noise. Four large private housing estates composed of multi-storied blocks with similar design and price bracket, catering to the mass property market, were sampled. Transaction price data and structural attributes of 652 dwelling units were acquired directly from developers. Data on environmental attributes were collected in the field. Two functional hedonic pricing method models, linear and semi-log, were constructed. The semi-log model offered comparatively stronger explanatory power and more reliable estimation. High floor on the multi-storey tenement blocks contributed implicitly 9.2% to the selling price. View of green spaces and proximity to water bodies raised housing price, contributing notably at 7.1% and 13.2%, respectively. Windows with a southern orientation with or without complementary eastern or northern views added 1% to the price. Proximity to nearby wooded area without public access was not significant, expressing the pragmatic mindset in the hedonic behavior. Exposure to traffic noise did not influence willingness-to-pay, implying tolerance of the chronic environmental nuisance in the compact city. The study demonstrates that hedonic pricing method could be applied in the Chinese context with an increasingly expanding and privatized property market. It could inform the decisions of policy makers and property developers concerning land selling and buying, land conversion, property development, urban nature conservation, and design of ecological green-space networks.     

绵阳市房地产市场调控与房价走势研究

结合绵阳市特定的市场背景,回顾2000年以来的房地产市场运行情况,研究其发展规律,对未来一段时间内的房地产价格趋势进行预测,并就促进绵阳市区域房地产市场的健康发展提出了建议。     

Heritage attributes of post-war housing in Amsterdam

Modern heritage, particularly post-war social housing estates, is struggling with negative perceptions. Accordingly, this research aims to contribute to a better understanding of the heritage significance of post-war housing estates in general and the Western Garden Cities – a post-war neighborhood in Amsterdam – in particular. A review of the limited body of literature on the heritage significance of modern and post-war housing estates was performed. A significance assessment was conducted on a sample of representative case studies by using expert interviews for data collection. The experts assigned significance levels to attributes based on whether or not they need to be preserved during a sustainable refurbishment. The highest-valued attributes are parcellation, balconies, and semi-public green spaces. The most negative value was assigned to the application of external insulation, replacement of the window frames by PVC-U, and closed character of the façades on the ground floor level. The lack of heritage recognition at the lower scale level may either be due to the important details already being lost or details not yet consistently being recognized as the architecture and buildings are understudied in comparison with the urban qualities of post-war heritage.     

Livability of subsidized housing estates in marketized socialist China: An institutional interpretation

To cope with the increasingly severe problem of housing unaffordability brought about by marketization reforms, the government of marketized socialist China has adopted a nationwide policy of constructing large-scale subsidized housing estates. However, the livability of these housing estates is yet to be investigated. Improvements in the livability of these estates must be based on an in-depth understanding of institutional forces and processes. A household survey of 11 subsidized housing estates suggests that the unfavorable quality of built environments, largely owing to the spatially and socially isolated locations, cannot meet the actual needs of low-income residents. The inheritance from the socialist planned economy, including the bureaucratic administrative system, limited and inefficient negotiations between government departments, and a limited and unstable supply of land that rooted in the land marketization reform, has significantly influenced the provision of subsidized housing as well as its livability.     

我国绿色住宅市场溢价的定量分析

发展绿色住宅对我国经济社会可持续发展具有重要意义,除了政府相关政策激励外,绿色住宅在商品住宅市场上的溢价是影响房地产开发企业建设绿色住宅的关键因素。基于我国近年获得绿色认证的新建商品住宅及相关的市场调研数据,利用特征价格法定量分析了获得绿色认证的商品住宅项目的市场溢价。结果表明,绿色住宅与非绿色住宅相比存在6.4%的市场溢价,其中获得绿标1 星、2 星和3 星认证的绿色住宅的溢价率分别为6.0%、8.6%和4.2%,显著溢价的存在表明绿色住宅得到了市场的认可。     

Property price gradients: the vertical dimension

This is an empirical study on the pricing of two vertical property attributes: floor level and building height. Floor level is the vertical location of a unit in a multi-storey building; the extra price paid for a higher floor level is labelled a floor-level premium. Previous hedonic price studies unequivocally showed that the floor-level premium is positive, but they were silent on whether its magnitude varies with floor levels and with buildings of different heights. Indeed, building height is a feature of a building, not its constituent units, so it is not clear whether building height alone should affect the units’ prices. Based on a sample of highly homogeneous housing units in buildings of varying heights, we found that (1) the floor-level premium was not constant, but diminished as floor level increases; (2) there was no significant difference in the pattern of the floor-level premium between high-rise and low-rise buildings; and (3) there was a positive and significant premium for units in low-rise buildings over those in high-rise ones. These findings can help developers determine the optimal height and shape of their development.     

Subway capitalization effect in Beijing: Theory and evidence on the variation of the subway proximity premium

This paper analyses the relationship between community attributes and the subway home‐price capitalization effect, asking whether the magnitude of the subway proximity premium is affected by neighbourhood economic status and location. Using longitudinal data from Beijing, the paper estimates that decreasing a community's distance to a subway station by 10 per cent increases the housing price per square metre by 0.2 per cent ~ 0.9 per cent. The paper also shows that, subway capitalization effect is around 0.1 per cent ~ 0.2 per cent lower for communities that have higher quality and charge a 1 Yuan higher property management fee. Moreover, the analysis also reveals that the subway capitalization will decrease by around 0.08 per cent as a community's distance to the central business district (CBD) increases by 1 km.     

Master Planned Estates and Collective Private Assets in Australia: Research into the Attitudes of Planners and Developers

Master planned estates have grown in number Australia and internationally as a favoured form of development in new and infill estates. This paper explores the use of legal entities known in the state of Victoria as owners' corporations to hold communal assets in private ownership for the exclusive use of those living in master planned estates. The privatization of assets that would normally be held by municipal government has been associated by some with heightened conflict in estates, greater costs for residents and increased separation from the larger community. This paper seeks to investigate the motivations and attitudes of both local government planners and developers in utilizing forms of private collective ownership in residential estates in a major city of Australia, Melbourne. This empirical investigation demonstrates that developers generally utilize these ownership structures in order to provide a different, but not necessarily better, standard of facilities as a means of market differentiation. Planners, on the other hand, are more diffident in their endorsement of privatized community ownership and demonstrate a degree of concern about their changed relationship to residents in such estates. The research suggests that issues relating to this choice of ownership of community assets have not been fully considered by local government, particularly in terms of protecting the long-term interests of residents.     

公路工程人工信息价与市场价差异研究

针对公路工程人工信息价与市场价不协调的问题,结合全国农民工监察调查报告等实际数据,从结构﹑计量单位﹑属性3 个方面定性分析了两者产生差异的原因。据此以规费﹑计量单位﹑属性三因素为决策变量,基于人工费收支平衡建立了公路工程人工信息价与市场价的差异综合分析模型,通过模型求出的吻合系数β 可度量人工信息价与市场价的差异,并用实例验证了模型。研究结果表明:吻合系数β 可以较好地度量二者的差异程度;模型具有良好的评价功能,可用于指导相关市场参与主体的行为。     

Modeling Hong Kong real estate prices

This paper attempts to estimate real estate prices from a Hong Kong perspective. A hedonic price model is estimated utilizing housing transaction data during a period of relatively stable property price movements. Empirical results suggest that while a residential property of larger size, higher floor level, and better view commands a higher transaction price, a property lying closer to the mass transit railway station also commands a price premium. The nonlinear effect of floor level has also been confirmed to exert an impact upon prices. Furthermore, an apartment located on an “unlucky number” floor is not preferred by homebuyers and is usually transacted at a price discount.     

Measuring the neighboring and environmental effects on residential property value: Using spatial weighting matrix

The relationship between house price and location is very complicated. Traditional theory mainly emphasizes the relationship between the effects of accessibility to central locations on housing prices and ignores location-specific attributes of housing. Previous studies at best examine only one or a few environmental amenities. However, little has been done on a high-rise, densely populated living environment. This paper thus aims to investigate the “neighboring and environmental characteristics” of a residential property on its market value in such unique setting. It uses a more advanced approach—i.e. a hedonic model with spatial adjustments—and applies GIS techniques. The findings are mostly consistent with our hypotheses. The traveling time from the apartment to the central business district is negatively correlated with housing price. Households are also willing to pay more for apartments with sea view and better air. However, greenbelt is not a significant variable on housing price and noise level is even found to be positively correlated with the price. This unexpected finding may be explained by the uniquely dense living environment in Hong Kong where households are willing to sacrifice serenity for convenience. The current research is adequately sophisticated and has contributed to a better understanding of the important theoretical question of how much a household is willing to spend on various environmental and neighbourhood attributes of an apartment.     

房地产中的公共经济学

当前房价屡经调控仍居高不下的主要原因,是既得利益集团阻挠对房价的抑制和各项政策未能遵循房地产中的公共经济学原理。一方面,房地产具有公共产品的属性,从而市场经济在配置此类资源时严重的失灵,必须引入政府干预;另一方面,房地产政策的主要作用方向应当是房地产商空置商品房的行为和富人们占用过多房地产的行为,而不是人们买卖房屋的行为。     

Value of scenic views: Hedonic assessment of private housing in Hong Kong

Diverse landscape elements in cities are valued differently by residents. People are willing to pay a premium for attractive views. This study assessed the amenity value of two major types of natural landscape in Hong Kong: harbor and mountain. The study was based on 1474 transactions in 2005 and 2006 in 18 private housing estates in a residential district. The high-rise and high-density blocks were typical for middle-income housing in the city. The hedonic pricing method was employed to estimate the proportional share of various views and factors on transaction prices. Only harbor view was preferred and reflected in housing value. A broad harbor view could increase the value of an apartment by 2.97%, equivalent to US$ 15,173. Even a confined harbor view could lift price by 2.18% or US$ 11,137. On the contrary, a broad mountain view would depress apartment price by 6.7%, whereas a confined mountain view was statistically insignificant. Increasing distance between an apartment and a preferred natural landscape would lower transaction price. The negative perception of street view induced a price reduction by 3.7%. Building views were tolerated as an inevitable feature of the compact and vertical city. Quantifying the value of nature and scenic endowments in cities could inform policies and strategies on urban planning, development, nature conservation, and property appraisal.     

Price competition and node-linkage association

This paper presents a short-run model of price competition for markets defined as networks (node-linkage associations) under perfectly inelastic consumer demand. Analytical and simulation analyses show an inverse relationship between firms' equilibrium price schedules and the number of directly connected rival firms. As the degree of network connectivity increases, holding the size of the overall market constant, average equilibrium mill prices tend to decrease at a decreasing rate. This implies that the intensity of competition in a network increases as the network becomes more fully connected, and equilibrium price levels converge at some theoretical minimum that is specific to the prevailing market conditions. Price-connectivity relations are shown to be highly sensitive to network structure and the distribution of price conjectural parameters. In addition, the paper briefly discusses the welfare implications of price reductions from an accessible and cost-efficient firm in a network.     

Towards more Social Cohesion in Large Post-Second World War Housing Estates? A Case Study in Utrecht,the Netherlands1

The last few years have seen many studies of large post-Second World War housing estates. At present they are often the most deprived areas of European cities. The turnover of the population on these estates is characteristically rapid, leading to considerable socio-economic and socio-cultural changes and a multi-ethnic neighbourhood. Such areas often have to contend with severe physical, social and economic problems and the consequent dissatisfaction of the residents. This combination of rapid and selective population turnover and increasing numbers of problems may well affect aspects of social cohesion within these neighbourhoods, particularly the social networks. This process is regrettable, because social cohesion is regarded in a positive light, something that enhances the quality of life. Stimulating social cohesion is therefore an important objective of many policies that focus on large post-Second World War housing estates. The authors have found it interesting to discover how important social cohesion is in the opinions and the lives of the inhabitants rather than the policy makers. In their opinion, urban policies focus on social cohesion while the inhabitants' views of its relevance are unknown. On the basis of this paper, certain aspects of social cohesion in large post-Second World War housing estates appear to be valued, but housing market behaviour, such as residential moves, is hardly affected by aspects of social cohesion. Other aspects, such as moving to a better house, are much more relevant. The results may put into doubt the stress placed in urban policies on social cohesion.     

居住环境品质优化下的中国社区规划演变研究 ——以广州市保障房社区为例

社区是社会治理的基石,构筑共建共治共享的社会治理模式是新时代对社区规划的顶层设计指引,也是国外社区规划的魅力所在。国内的社区规划长期聚焦于对物质空间的刻画,但随着政府和公众对居住环境品质关注度的提升,社区规划正逐步转型,但转型程度尚有待探索。以广州市早期及新建成的保障房社区为例,从居住环境品质的角度对规划实施成效及公众参与的影响程度进行比较评价。结果显示,保障房社区规划的制度设计与技术标准均有提升,规划编制与实施也更多地吸纳公众的意见。为社区规划的转型与社区共同缔造提供参考。     

利用地方材料配制自密实混凝土试验研究

针对目前合肥地区大发展、大建设、大环境的道路交通、房地产开发等土木工程建设,利用地方资源,对当地混凝土原材料进行优化选择,采用正交试验设计,配制出大流动性(流动度:650 mm)、较好的间隙通过能力(H2/H10.7)、1 h坍落度损失小于15 min、耐久性能良好、结构密实、28 d抗压强度大于60 MPa的高强度等级的自密实混凝土.     

Demand models incorporating price differences across political boundaries

Whenever a consumer can acquire a good or service more conveniently by paying a per-unit premium, the number of units purchased in a particular transaction becomes important. Furthermore, the potential convenience associated with the consumption process is often independent of the number of units of the good being purchased. This implies that the price of convenience (POC) can be defined as the increment to total cost incurred by the decision to purchase at the premium price. The POC will influence a consumer's decision to participate in either the high-priced or the low-priced market.While the notion of a price of convenience is quite general, this paper focuses on an area where it may be particularly relevant. When political boundaries are present and create a differential in the real price of some good on each side of a border, the price of convenience will be an important determinant of the demand for commodities (near the border) in both jurisdictions. The POC model is examined here as an extension to a special case of the notion of market locational accessibility, where accessibility enters discretely, rather than as a continuous variable. Simple logit models are argued to be appropriate for empirical applications when only a binary side-of-border decision is being modeled. If this decision is embedded in a hierarchy of convenience choices, multinomial logit techniques are suggested.The authors wish to thank D. Classman, C. Hives, A. Redish, J. Wyatt, and I. Perkins.     

The dynamics of the Shanghai land market - An intra city analysis

In an open market, the land price of a particular site represents a set of attributes that a user is willing to pay for the use of that site. It has long been established that one of the most important attributes is the distance of this site from the city center. Based on a mono-centric assumption of urban development, land economists since Alonso have almost all agreed that there is a diminishing effect on land price the greater the distance from the city center. Although there have been various modifications of this locational perspective, it remains the core concept of land market dynamics. The question arises, therefore, as to whether a semi-open but extremely active land market with a heavy government presence will also follow this urban structure principle. In this paper, we apply a double-log regression model to examine land price changes in Shanghai from 1992 to 2006. Our results, based on an examination of more than seven thousand transactions, show that land price changes in Shanghai follow these dynamics and that a major transportation node plays an important role.     

谈中国工程机械主要出口国/地区认证要求——TüV SüD解读工程机械欧美市场第三方认证和检验标准

近年来,随着世界范围内基础建设的大规模开展,工程机械的需求量逐年攀升。中国生产的工程机械设备除了供应国内市场,也以优良的质量,合理的价格,出色的售后服务逐步占据了越来越大的国际市场。基于工程机械本身的多样化及复杂性,欧盟标准指令本身也在持续更新。国内制造商在对国外认证要求不够了解时,难免在如何进行强制认证,如何满足完整要求,如何选择可靠执行力强的第三方认证机构等方面面临更多的难题。