Declining regions, declining values?

  • Author:
  • Year: 2018

Shrinking regions, which are regions that suffer from demographic decline, have several problems in the field of housing, as it could lead to the depreciation of properties and ultimately to vacancy. Housing associations have an important social role in these areas. To know the effect of the aspects of demographic decline on the value of the stock of a housing association in a shrinking region, the market values of social rented dwellings of a housing association in the province of Limburg are compared. In the province of Limburg are several shrinking regions located. To know the “pure” effect of the location on the market value, the market values are corrected for the features of the dwellings and compared between the different regions. From this analysis, it came forward that the corrected mean market values are significant lower in the shrinking regions in Limburg. After a closer study into the components that are needed to calculate the market value, it appeared that these regional differences in the market value are mainly caused by the value with vacant possession. The last step of the analysis was to check to what extent the regional differences in the market value could be explained in terms of the aspects of demographic decline. This analysis showed that the more a region suffers from demographic decline (i.e. the more aspects of demographic decline are applicable in that region), the lower the mean market value is.