House Buyers' Preference of Housing Delivery Methods: The Choice Between

   HOUSE BUYERS' PREFERENCE OF HOUSING DELIVERY METHODS: THE CHOICE BETWEEN BUILD THEN SELL OR SELL THEN BUILD

Dr. Mohd Wira Mohd Shafiei

Dr. Nor'Aini Yusof, Dr. Ilias Said

Dr. Shardy Abdullah

School of Housing

Building and Planning

11800 Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang

ABSTRACT

The Malaysian housing development industry had grown by leaps and bounds since the birth of the independent nation in 1957. Within the context of free market economy, the Government had allowed the housing developers to chart their own path that can suit the demands of the Malaysian house buyers. Nevertheless, the activities of the players did not go unchecked. The developers had traditionally been regulated by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and relevant legislations. The industry was progressing smoothly until the occurrence of economic recession in the 1980s. The sudden increase in abandoned projects had put the industry into a spotlight. Never before, had the industry been generally criticised for consumers and buyers mistreatment. During these testing times, some parties had proposed the implementation of Build Then Sell (BTS) as one of the solutions to protect the house buyers and ultimately, for the betterment of the industry. However, it took the relevant parties nearly thirty years to put the system into place in the announcement made by the Government in 2007. The implementation of this system, designed to co-exist with the time-honoured system known as Sell Then Build (STB) had put this study into motion. The research had been guided by two objectives: to identify house buyers' perception of 100% BTS, 10:90 BTS, and STB housing delivery methods, and to rank the factors influencing house buyers' preferences of the 100% BTS, 10:90 BTS, and STB housing delivery methods. To achieve the objectives, a quantitative research method was utilised to gather and analyse the data. The data collection method used in this study is by self-administered questionnaire in a survey conducted in a property exhibition in Melaka. In all, 244 people were willing to become the respondents for the study. The results had been analysed by using frequency test, cross tabulation, and descriptive statistics. Early findings showed that not many house buyers are aware of the characteristics of the BTS system that had been implemented in the housing market. The findings also indicated that STB method was perceived to be favoured by the respondents (81.6% agreement) more than the 100% BTS method (56.6% agreement) or the 10:90 BTS (57% agreement). Further investigation revealed that STB scheme was more preferred than the two BTS variants because of the lower initial purchase price. The BTS variants strong point is also the financial factor - the systems were perceived to be more attractive to the lenders in term of loan approval to the house buyers.