The impact of historic preservation policies on housing values

Abstract

Historic preservation dwellings offer qualities that benefit to both owners and society. At the same time, the preservation politics might involve some cost and restrictions. Although a large number of studies have aimed to assess the impact of historic preservation on housing values, this study is to our knowledge the first investigated whether the observed historic preservation premium is due to the changed juridical status (a policy effect) or to qualities that are observed by the buyers that are unobserved in the model. By using a unique data set that combines data of preserved historic dwellings in Oslo, Norway, and data from the housing market from 1990 to 2017, we study sales prices for the same dwellings both before and after the event of historic preservation. The higher prices of preserved historic dwellings seem to be caused, by qualities in the dwellings that correlate with the forthcoming historic preservation, not by the policy event itself.