Examination of the impacts of hospital accessibility on housing prices: heterogeneity across attributes, space and price quantiles

Hospitals become more involved in the development of the healthy community and are usually important factors influencing housing values. Proximity to hospitals has been found to pose negative effects on surrounding housing values. However, hospitals are considered as a type of urban facility only accounting for their geographic locations when analyzing the effects of hospitals on housing prices. The attributes of hospitals and their diverse effects on different quantiles values of housing have been little scrutinized during the analysis. In this study, we examined the impact of hospital accessibility on surrounding housing prices simultaneously accounting for the heterogeneity of hospitals attributes, geospatial locations and housing price quantiles. We classified the values of hospitals accessibility by three walking distance (e.g., under 5 min, 6–10 min, 11–15 min) and coupled these walking accessibility values with three types of hospitals in Shanghai, China (e.g., primary, secondary, and tertiary). We incorporated a spatial econometric model and a quantile regression model to examine the association between these newly classified housing accessibility values and housing prices. Results showed that (1) higher-tier hospitals are spatially associated with higher values of housing. (2) The accessibility premiums and proximity penalties simultaneously exist in the impact of hospitals on housing prices. Specifically, the walking distances of 5- to 10-min to primary and secondary hospitals and of 10- to 15-min to tertiary hospitals all increased housing prices in surrounding areas. However, walking distances of less than 10 min to tertiary hospitals led to lower housing prices. (3) Potential buyers of all-priced housing would be willing to pay more for housing because of good accessibility to hospitals, but their requests varied across groups. This study proposes a framework for analyzing housing prices accounting for both the amenity and the dis-amenity features of hospitals. The findings would inform urban planning and policy interventions to build a healthy community.