ECONOMICS UNIQUENESS

100 ■ THE ECONOMICS OF UNIQUENESS
GIS-based information on the nature and location of these cultural heritage
assets is available on all items in this research, regarding the dwellings sales as
well as regarding their features and their sales. Th e main question addressed is
whether there is a signifi cant diff erence between listed heritage and dwellings
sold in a cultural, historic urban landscape as compared to other (comparable)
dwellings sold.
For the spatial-econometric analysis of hedonic prices, the following model
has been used:
• ln P = f (intercept, transactional attributes, structural characteristics, spatial features,
and heritage characteristics) in which P is the market price of the dwelling
sold. Th e determinants of the housing prices will be concisely described.
• Transactional attributes refer to leasehold conditions, to the question of
whether the house is newly built, as well as to the selling conditions of the
property.
• Structural characteristics comprise such factors as fl oor area, capacity, number
of rooms, presence of gas heater, dwelling insulation, maintenance conditions
(indoors and outdoors), existence of garden, presence of parking space,
housing type, and year of construction.
• Spatial features are related to the location near a busy street, proximity to open
water, population density, foreign population housed in the neighborhood,
distance to city center, and nature of the village.
• Finally, heritage characteristics refer to the question of whether the property
(building, monument in urban historic landscape) has relevance in terms of
its architectural beauty, meaning for science, or historic-cultural value—in
some cases defi ned as the building having a minimum age of 50 years.
It should be added that estimation of the above spatial hedonic model calls for
proper spatial autocorrelation test statistics.
Th e impact of heritage housing can be assessed in a direct and an indirect
manner. Th e direct estimation aims to assess the diff erence with otherwise comparable
houses that are not listed, while the indirect eff ect aims to gauge the
impact of the proximity of the listed heritage (within a radius of 50 meters) on
the value of non-listed houses in the same area, as well as the impact that sold
houses in a historic, protected urban landscape experienced compared to other
sold houses. Admittedly, a listed heritage status also implies restrictions on the
free use of the property, but the counter-side is that there is also a possibility to
obtain subsidies or tax exemptions on a listed monument.
Several interesting results were obtained by applying two variants of the
hedonic price model outlined above, particularly for variant 1 with a monument
dummy and listed heritage in a 50-meter radius, but also for variant 2 with a
monument dummy and location in a protected historic landscape.