What happens to land price when a rural construction land market legally opens in China? A spatiotemporal analysis of Nanhai district from 2010 to 2015

Abstract

Urban and rural construction land markets in China, the two formerly separated markets, are beginning to be unified in some pilot areas. So far, but little is known about the associated land market development patterns and what factors influence land market price. In order to examine the impact of urban developers' access to legal rural construction land market on land price, we analyzed the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of price trends for the rural-urban land market in Nanhai district, Guangdong Province, between 2010 and 2015. We collected 2285 land transaction data during that span and mapped price contour lines for the rural-urban development land market in the whole district by using spatial interpolation techniques. Four hedonic price models, on rural and urban construction land respectively, were developed to measure the marginal effects of land attributes on price. Results from the analysis suggest that, temporally, the prices of rural-urban development land grew rapidly between 2010 and 2015. Spatially, prices spread along a gradient from east to west, and the prices in North Nanhai district were significantly higher than those in the south. The hedonic models also suggest that land use type, lot size, and various spatial characteristics impact rural and urban land prices. Overall, this research presented here contributes our understanding of the complex nature of establishing a unified land market in China.