Are gated communities “safe havens”? Examining housing price dynamics of Chinese gated and non-gated communities during COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Gated communities (GCs) and associated socio-economic implications are of global concern. How GCs and non-GCs responded to the external shock of the pandemic has not been comprehensively understood. Drawing on the information of infected cases during the first wave pandemic (January-March 2020) and longitudinal data of housing sales and rental prices for each community from July/2019-June/2020 in 11 Chinese cities, we employ a hedonic difference-in-differences approach accounting for heterogenous effects in stagger timing to discover the effects of COVID-19 on housing price differences between GCs and non-GCs. Moreover, the buffer zones of infected epicentres are delineated to explore the spillover effects. Compared with GCs, non-GCs with different distances from the pandemic epicentres experienced significantly greater reductions in both housing sales and rental prices at varying degrees. While the effect on housing sales prices was significant over time, it only lasted for one month for rental prices. This study enhances our understanding of housing price dynamics and the socio-spatial implications of GCs.