Customers’ Interests in Sustainable Townships and Smart Housing Features in Malaysia

Abstract

Sustainable housing design, materials and energy efficiency has been a focus of Malaysian Governments in recent years. Such a focus should improve the quality of the built environment, create better places for people to live and at the same time, improve and protect the environment. However, there are issues pertaining customers’ interest on the benefits gained from buying the sustainable township and smart homes. This paper presents the perceptions of customers of the sustainable township and smart housing features in terms of its value, effectiveness, functionality, and practicability towards customer’s quality of life. A convenience under non-probability sampling was adopted to obtain customers’ feedback based on 144 respondents on 13 statements related to sustainable township and smart housing features. A descriptive analysis using aggregated ranking is derived based on the relative importance index (RII) which resulted in the following rankings: Interest to live in sustainable township with smart housing features, solar system, energy saving appliances, water saving rainwater harvesting system, building arrangements, smart building layout, green areas in township, sustainable township and smart housing features that provide beneficial information, remote monitoring and controlling energy usage through applications, efficient insulation and prepaid option for bill payment. From the environmental perspective, the property development sector has been recognized as a major contributor to the global environmental problem. Thus, the findings from this research may help to determine customers’ interest for future property development projects.

Keywords: Smart Housing Features, Sustainable Township