Relative Importance Analysis of Purchasing Decision Factors for Residential Properties in Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia

Abstract A house is an important basic need. The lack of housing supply to middle and low-income groups further aggravates the difficulty to own homes for these groups of people. Mitigation of this situation demands government intervention in providing affordable housing and other incentives. A limited supply of houses and a rapidly increasing population have caused house prices to skyrocket. Even though the housing market stock has increased in certain areas and by types in Seri Iskandar, Perak, a supply-demand mismatch occurs as buyers in this area are still hesitant. Hence, it is crucial to investigate factors influencing purchase decisions among prospective buyers of residential properties in Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak. A conceptual framework was developed and tested on a sample of 110 respondents in Bandar Seri Iskandar by using closed-ended questionnaires. Out of 110 questionnaires distributed, only 74 questionnaires were usable for analysis which represent only 69.09 % of the response rate. Sampling techniques used for this study are stratified and convenience sampling. Relative Importance Index (RII) and Descriptive Analysis were used to analyse the data collected. The highest values of RII show the most important or strongly agreed point and vice versa.  Findings of this study revealed that the major factors influencing purchase decision of residential properties in this area were neighborhood factor (0.7523), followed by concepts and building features (0.7391), financial (0.7296), location (0.7207), type of land ownership (0.7184), developer’s reputation (0.7013), demographics (0.6727) and socio-cultural (0.5474). The main objective of this study is to enable property developers to understand the consistency of factors influencing purchase decision of residential properties. eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2019. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.