Two developments that may impact house prices have dominated the residential property landscape in South Africa in recent years, namely government’s planned social housing developments and residential property value assessments carried out by local municipalities across South Africa for property tax purposes. Social housing developments are often plagued by “local opposition”, who argue that subsidised housing units may have a negative effect on adjacent non-subsidised residential housing. Negative preconceptions of social housing form the basis of this argument, which is commonly referred to as the “not-in-my-backyard” (NIMBY) syndrome. International studies conducted have, however, produced mixed results with some concluding that social housing developments lead to a reduction in nearby property prices, whilst others conclude that they lead to an improvement in surrounding property values. Currently, the state of the South African economy and demographics are limiting previously disadvantaged, poor peoples’ access to affordable and safe housing, and for this reason the basis of the NIMBY rationale deserves closer attention. In order to test the validity of the NIMBY rationale, this study examines, by means of the hedonic price method, the effect of an existing housing establishment catering for low-income earners (the Walmer/Gqebera Township) on adjacent property values in the suburb of Walmer, Port Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape. The study concludes that the low-cost housing development exerts a negative impact on the property values of nearby houses - the average owner of a non-subsidised residential property in Walmer would be willing to pay between R38 033 and R46 898 to be situated 200 metres further away from the Walmer Township. This conclusion is subject to three qualifications. The first is that the Walmer Township is not a recognised social housing development but merely a proxy for one. The second qualification is that a relatively small data set was used in this study and only one social housing development was considered. The third qualification is that the study period is from 1995 to 2009, which necessitated the adjustment of market prices to constant 2009 rands. For this purpose, data from the Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage section of the ABSA house price indices were used. It was not possible to disaggregate the indices further to obtain a Walmer-specific index. It is possible that an imperfect correlation exists between the Walmer property trend and the metropolitan (Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage) trend used in this study. Based on the results of this doctoral investigation it is recommended that a monthly rebate on property rates of between R269.40 and R332.19 be implemented for affected Walmer residents. This amount could be sufficient to mitigate the capital loss associated with proximity to the Walmer Township. In terms of the management of social housing projects, it is strongly recommended that the following occur in order to alleviate the NIMBY syndrome: existing dwellings should be renovated, tenants should be monitored, dwellings should be appropriately designed and maintained, the composition of the host neighbourhood should be assessed and the image of social housing should be improved. With regard to the renovation of dwellings, social housing site preference should be given to existing structures in need of renovation, as positive externalities are associated with the renovation of such properties. The monitoring of tenants needs to take place in order to ensure that the financial and behavioural obligations of the tenants are met, and that informal “shack dwellings” do not materialise on site, and finally, that tenant default rates remain low. The appropriate management of these projects will also aid in combating the perception that social housing developments lead to private residential property devaluation. In respect of residential property value assessments, many homeowners have recently argued that there is very little equivalence between the municipality’s valuations and true market values. This study uses, inter alia, the hedonic price model to investigate the accuracy of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s 2007/2008 valuation roll. The investigation was limited to the valuation roll applicable to the Walmer neighbourhood. The study finds that there is, on average, a 13.89 percent difference between market prices and the 2007/2008 municipal assessed values. In addition, this study finds that an attributebased hedonic price model produces property price predictions that are more in line with true market values. This finding is subject to two qualifications. The first qualification is that only the Walmer neighbourhood’s assessed values were considered, thus limiting the findings. The second qualification is that a relatively small data set was used.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:nmmu/vital:9023 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Sale, Michael Charles |
| Publisher | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Doctoral, DCom |
| Format | xvii, 191 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University |
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