Do 5G cell phone towers decrease house prices? Evidence from Warsaw

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of telecommunication infrastructure on residential property prices in Poland. This study contributes to the discussion of economic externalities related to new public infrastructure within the urban landscape. We use hedonic regression, matching techniques, and a difference-in-differences estimator to assess the impact of base transceiver stations on apartment prices in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, which covered market data on the sales of residential premises located in Miasteczko Wilanów estate in Warsaw from 2016 to 2021. In the analysed period, 1,825 residential sales were recorded and used for econometric modelling. The results do not confirm the influence of the vicinity of the wireless communication technology infrastructure on residential real estate prices in the studied local market. In particular, we did not observe a detrimental effect of cell phone towers on housing prices. Additionally, we investigate whether residential sale prices in proximity to BTS changed significantly after the introduction of the 5G standard. This particular issue has not been addressed in the economic literature. We found that the sale prices of apartments located in Warsaw were not statistically affected by the introduction of a fifth-generation technology standard for broadband cellular networks. Our research contributes to a better understanding of stigmatisation effects related to telecommunication infrastructure, and in particular, the links between the presence of cell phone towers and residential property values in the neighbourhood. The results may be of interest to all potential agents involved in neighbourhood conflicts arising from investments in cell phone towers and the development of new communication infrastructure in urban landscapes.