Social-Psychological Factors Influencing Home Buyer’s Intention to Purchase Green Homes in Klang Valley, Malaysia

Ting, Denise Theresa Hui Wen (2021) Social-Psychological Factors Influencing Home Buyer’s Intention to Purchase Green Homes in Klang Valley, Malaysia. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

In recent years, the market for sustainable housing developments has been increasingly popular. Despite the increasing awareness of global warming and climate change, the demand for green homes is not as promising as expected. As such, the aim of this study is to look into the social-psychological factors influencing home buyer’s intentions to purchase green homes as this information is important in designing strategies to promote and encourage Malaysians to live more sustainably. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and Norm Activation Theory (NAM) was used to develop the research model to explain home buyer’s green home purchase intention. Furthermore, this study collected data from 105 respondents from the states of Kuala Lumpur and Selangor through distributing self-administered questionnaires online and performed data analysis on the data received using SmartPLS 3.0 and Microsoft Excel. The findings revealed that attitude towards green home, awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility and personal norm have a positive significant influence on home buyer’s purchase intention towards green homes. However, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control were not significantly related to green home purchase intention. As a result, it is reasonable to conclude that home buyer’s intentions to purchase green homes are driven by a number of rational and moral factors. Besides the social-psychological factors, this study also examined the potential home buyer’s understanding and awareness of green homes, as well as the types of green home features the home buyers preferred the most. It was found that the majority of them had a shallow understanding of green homes and the awareness about green home existence in Malaysia is average. Moreover, the preferred green home features ranking revealed that Malaysians will prioritise purchasing green home features that reduce electricity consumption, followed by strategic building structure design, sustainable building materials, systems that preserve water, and finally getting plants.