Abstract
In an aging society, as the number of people with disabilities increases concerns are raised about the quality of life of these people and their access to a safe environment becomes important. The purpose of this study is to find out the value of accessibility as an attribute of housing. To estimate the value of accessible, barrier-free housing, this study uses the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) and analyzes the factors which affect the Willingness To Pay (WTP) of survey respondents by using Survival Analysis. In addition, the importance and satisfaction of barrier-free facilities in the dwellings of survey respondents was investigated. Since aging could be an important factor in influencing the need for accessibility, this study surveyed two age groups, one group (212 respondents) of people below the age of 65 and the other (162 respondents) of people above 65. The results of this study show that respondents would pay on average 2.67% more for being barrier-free when answering an open-ended question and 3.87% more for barrier-free housing when using the double referendum model. This is the increase in value that the respondents perceive as a consequence of removing all the architectural barriers from a dwelling. On average, elderly respondents would pay 2.99% of housing price for accessible features compared to 4.40% of the younger group. However, if the elderly who have willingness to pay for accessibility, the value the older group put on barrier-free housing was higher than the value perceived by the younger group. Factors that influence the WTP are importance of barrier-free facilities, education level and housing type. The value of dwellings without barriers estimated in this study shows the potential size and value of this kind of housing market to the housing development sector.