The Impact of Social Housing Developments on Nearby Property Prices: a Nelson Mandela Bay Case Study

Abstract

Social housing projects often face substantial “Not‐in‐my‐backyard” (NIMBY) sentiment and, as a result, are frequently plagued by local opposition from communities who argue that nearby property prices will be affected adversely by these developments. International hedonic pricing studies conducted have, however, produced mixed results with some concluding that social housing developments may in fact lead to an improvement in surrounding property values. There is, however, a paucity of South African evidence. This study considers the validity of the most pervasive NIMBY argument, the claim that social housing developments negatively affect nearby property values, by considering the property prices of 170 single‐family homes in the Walmer neighbourhood, Nelson Mandela Bay, as a function of their proximity to an existing low‐cost housing development. The results of this study indicate that in the case of one Nelson Mandela Bay low‐cost housing development, a negative impact is exerted on the property values of nearby houses.

A Machine Learning Approach to Study the Relationship between Features of the Urban Environment and Street Value

“…We argue that this phenomenon is due to the social stigma usually assigned to such places. This finding is corroborated by previous works that found significant relationships between house prices discounts and proximity to social housing estates [56,57].…”

NIMBYs for the rich and YIMBYs for the poor: analyzing the property price effects of infill development

“…The Swedish capital of Stockholm is no exception. Research evidence thus far is mixed, with some studies showing that infill development projects lead to a positive impact on property prices (Ding et al, 2000;Ellen and Voicu, 2006;Kurvinen and Vihola, 2016;Ooi and Le, 2013;Simons et al, 1998); others find a negative impact (Du Preez and Sale, 2013;Funderburg and MacDonald, 2010;Wiley, 2009).…”