Assessing the influence of cultural ecosystem services on housing rent using hedonic price model

Most studies on the "hedonic pricing model" focus on developing nations. In Bangladesh, several research studies shows the influence of socio economic, transportation and environmental factors on urban housing prices of Dhaka and Khulna city. Despite Chattogram being Bangladesh's second largest city and "Commercial Capital," no definitive study has been done yet. Furthermore, no study has examined the economic value of urban cultural ecosystem services and their relationship to housing rent in Bangladesh's metropolitan areas. There is a clear lack of research using HPM to assess the influence of "Cultural Ecosystem Services" on house rent in urban areas like Chattogram city. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to assess the influence of Cultural Ecosystem Services on housing rent in Halishahar Housing Estate of Chattogram City. This study was conducted within Block A & B of Halishahar Housing Estate in Chattogram city. To collect primary data for this study, a field survey was performed with the assistance of assigned interviewers, utilizing questionnaires. However, due to time and resource constraints, as well as household members' reluctance to share information in this post-COVID-19 pandemic situation, this study only has 136 samples. OLS regressions (LRM & SRM) were used to predict housing rent and measure independent variables. On different variables, LRM and SRM were compared to determine the best model for describing independent-dependent relationships. Backward regression analysis was used to determine the final HPM for this study. WILD bootstrapping was also used to explain the variation in results with a 1,000 samples. According to the findings of this research, CES has a significant influence on the determination of housing rent in the studied region. The factors that have the greatest influence on housing rent in the study area among the various CES indicators are "the distance to recreational facilities", "the amount of time spent at recreational sites", "the degree of satisfaction with recreational services", and "the quality of the scenic and attractive views from residences". In addition, there are also significant differences in house rents and the availability of CES facilities between the two study blocks. In this study, monthly housing rent was used as a proxy for housing price, but housing transaction price or land and property value could provide more evidence on the relationship between housing price and CES in an urban residential setting. Future studies can use these housing-price factors as a dependent variable in other neighbourhoods of Chattogram city. This study only covered two neighbourhood blocks due to time and resources. Therefore, it may be challenging to generalize the study's findings to the entire Chattogram region. Similar studies are recommended for Chattogram’s entire city area to better understand the hedonic price model's conclusion of this study.