Buyers ’ Attitude and Preference towards Flat / Apartments

Nowadays people would like to have and live in their own house. Because of the growing population and lack of sufficient place, cities cannot grow horizontally. Building promoters and contractors in real estate industry are concentrating on the construction of flats/apartments even in cities like Trichy/Tamilnadu. In order to thrive and excel in the competitive environment flat promoters have to understand the expectations, tastes, preferences and lifestyle of the buyers. Two hundred and fifty customers who were living in the flats at Trichy area were included for this study. Findings of this study reveal that people living in the flats are giving importance to location of the flat, price, Swimming pool, Surveillance camera, living space, parking facility, lighting facility, lift and safety. This study will be useful for the customers to express about their opinion with regard to various aspects of flats and also useful for the flat promoters to understand about their buyers.


INTRODUCTION
Construction of houses involves various complex activities.Growth of various industries, private and government schools, colleges, universities and growing population make the people to search for rented/own houses to stay.But because of lack of sufficient place, cities like Trichy.Cannot grow horizontally.Growing popularity of the flats/apartments made the building contractors/promoters to construct flats/apartments mostly, than independent houses.Moreover, people do not have sufficient time, knowledge, expertise to construct houses of their own.Instead of running from pillar to post for building houses, nowadays people prefer to buy and stay in flats/apartments because of its various advantages.According to Hua Kiefer (2007), people have to collect lot of information with regard to the characteristics of apartments while buying, because it is a very important economic decision.In order to fulfil their expectations and enhance their living quality, people prefer to buy well furnished flats/apartments.Research conducted especially in the area of buyers' attitude about flats/apartments are not sufficient.This study will be useful for the flat promoters to understand about their customers and also will be useful for the customers to express their opinion about the various aspects of flats.People living in various apartments of Trichy/Tamilnadu were included for this study.Opinion of the buyers with regard to importance given to various factors while buying flats was studied.Structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Satisfaction from house is a significant constituent of general life contentment, Siamak and Hossien (2011).Situations of the house may cause stress to elderly person and would be important feature for the contentment of house and also for emotional happiness (Phillips et al., 2005).According to Mwfeq et al. (2011), factors like decoration, view, design, price, reputation, advertising, area of the apartments are important factors while buying apartments.Structure of the apartments (Quigley, 1985) and quality of neighbours, Gabriel and Rosenthal (1989) are important characteristics of apartments.According to Siamak and Hossien (2011), the enormous development of investment in apartment homes is perpetually changing the nature of investment in property site of property investment.Satisfaction from the house for an individual or family refers to the satisfaction from present housing condition (Djebarni and Al-Abed, 1998).
In order to evaluate the quality of building in Hong Kong, Yau et al. (2003), (cited by Siamak and Hossien, 2011) utilized the 'Building Quality Index' developed by The University of Hong Kong.According to Opoku and Muhmin (2010), people even from low income group favour buying of houses than to go for rented house and mostly favoured small house than huge apartments.According to the findings from Nechyba and Strauss (1997), particular area admission prices and home community services influence the choice of the place of houses.According to Thamaraiselvi and Rajalakshmi (2008), majority of the people preferred apartments because of safety and also majority of the buyers selected middle floor, i.e., first floor and two bed room flats.Need for information is important to solve most of the problems while buying houses, especially in Western countries (Savolainen, 2009).According to McCarthy (1982) appeal of the house is a mixture of broad range of characteristics like, quality, cost, layout, neighbourhood and size.Because of the low interest rate and wide loan phases, in the early 2000s, the market for housing was dynamic (Viitanen et al., 2003).Involvement of the tenant, repair work, good neighbourhood, social interaction, are the factors responsible in bringing satisfaction from the houses other than simply by the quality of the house alone (Tsemberis, 2003).

Objectives of the study:
• To study the importance given by the customers while buying the flats from the building promoters • To analyze the media to give advertisement for the flat promotion • To study the overall satisfaction level of the customers about the flats • To ascertain the relationship between the perceptions of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and mean ranks of the factors • To find out the relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and demographic variables like age, gender, monthly income

METHODOLOGY
Sample and data collection: Primary data and secondary data were used for this study.Two hundred and fifty people living in flats/apartments from various areas of Trichy/Tamilnadu were included for this study.
In order to find out the importance given by the customers while buying the flats from the building promoters structured questionnaire was used.

Hypotheses of the study: Null hypothesis:
• There is no significant relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and age of the customers.• There is no significant relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and gender of the customers.• There is no significant relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and educational qualification of the customers.• There is no significant relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and monthly income of the customers.• There is no significant relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and mean ranks of the factors.
Software package SPSS was used for Data analysis.Statistical techniques like descriptive analysis, Friedman test and Factor analysis were utilized to ascertain the respondents opinion about various aspects about flats/apartments.Relationship between demographic variables of the buyers and their opinion about various aspects of flats/apartments were also studied.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As per the Table 1, 66% of the respondents are male and 34% of the respondents are female out of 250 respondents.(38.7%) of the respondents are qualified with PG, 33.3% of the respondents are qualified with UG degree and 20% of the respondents are qualified with diploma.(68%) of the respondents' income was in the range of Rs. 10001 to 30000, 17.3% of the respondents' income was in the range of Rs. 31000 to 50000 and Rs.12.7% of the respondents' income was below Rs. 10000.
Cronbach's alpha reliability and consistency has to be found out when we use Likert-types scale in research.As per the Table 2, for all the 18 items used to find out the importance given by the customers while buying the flats from the promoters, the average Cronbach's alpha value is 0.851, which is higher than the suggested value of 0.7 (George and Mallery, 2003).
As per Table 3, Asymp.Sig.values (p = 0.000) are less than 0.05.Hence null hypotheses are rejected and the results are as follows:  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • There is a significant relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and age of the customers, χ 2 (18) = 459.8,p = 0.000.• There is a significant relationship between the perception of the with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and gender of the customers, χ 2 (18) = 531.8,p = 0.000.• There is a significant relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and educational qualification of the customers, χ 2 (18) = 448.1,p = 0.000.• There is a significant relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and monthly income of the customers, χ 2 (18) = 512.1,p = 0.000.• There is a significant relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and mean ranks of the factors.χ 2 (17) = 426.2,p = 0.000.
KMO and Bartlett's Test can be used to determine the power of association amid variables.In order to carry on with the satisfactory factor analysis, the value of KMO should be more than 0.7, (Marcus and Svend, 2006).As per the Table 4, KMO value is 0.756, Chisquare (153) = 481.925,p<0.01, hence Bartlett's Test of Sphericity is significant.Communalities are given in Table 5.As per Table 5, 84.1% of the variables accounted for 'Swimming pool', 82.5% of the variables accounted for 'number of bed rooms' and 81.5% of the variables accounted for 'Parking facility' in flats/apartments.
Other findings of the studies are as follows: It was found that with regard to opinion given by the customer for the factors pertaining to the flat, maximum importance was given to "Swimming pool" and minimum importance given to "Kitchen space".With regard to overall satisfaction level of the customers about their flats, 59.3% were customers were satisfied, 26% of the customers were highly satisfied and 7.3% were neutral.It was found that 77% of the customers living in the flats opined that they would recommend the builder to their relatives and friends and 77% of the respondents opined that if they want to buy another flat they would be ready to buy the flats from the same builders/flat promoters.It was found that with regard to opinion given by the customer for the factors pertaining to the flat, maximum importance was given to "Swimming pool" and minimum importance given to "Kitchen space".With regard to overall satisfaction level of the customers about their flats, 59.3% were customers were satisfied, 26% of the customers were highly satisfied and 7.3% were neutral.It was found that 77% of the customers living in the flats opined that they would recommend the builder to their relatives and friends and 77% of the respondents opined that if they want to buy another flat they would be ready to buy the flats from the same builders/flat promoters.It was found that that 45% of the customers came to know about the Flat promoters through news paper and 30% of the customers came to know about the flat promoters through TV.It was found that 47% of the customers said that they had restriction in their in apartment for pet animals and 26% of the respondents said that they had no restriction in their apartment for pet animals.It was found that 47% of the customers said that they had accessibility of public transport from their apartments and 27% of the customers said that they did not have accessibility of public transport from their apartments.It was found that that 62% of the customers said that they were having association in their apartments and 37% of the customers said that they did not have association in their apartments.

Results and implications:
Findings and suggestions based upon the statistical analysis are as follows: For all the 18 items used to find out the of the importance given by the customers while buying the flats from the promoters, the average Cronbach's alpha value is 0.851, which is higher than the suggested value of 0.7.This guarantees the reliability of the scale used.There is a significant relationship between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and mean ranks of the factors.There are significant relationships between the perception of the customers with regard to the importance given to the various factors while buying flats and demographic variables like age, gender, educational qualification and monthly income.Flat promoters while planning to construct the apartments have to incorporate the expectations of the family members in the flats, like lift facility for elders, play ground for children, modular kitchen, swimming pool, gym, temple and surveillance camera for high income group.KMO value of 0.756 ensures the satisfactory usage of factor analysis for this study, Chi-square (153) = 481.925,p<0.01, guarantees the significance of Bartlett's Test of Sphericity.Flat promoters are suggested to concentrate with 'Swimming pool', 'number of bed rooms' and 'parking facility' in the apartments.It is suggested to give Ad for flats/apartments in media like local vernacular and English newspapers and TV.It is suggested to devote the entire ground floor (stilt) for two wheelers, four wheelers parking and also for shops like grocery, medical...It is suggested that in order to finish the project as promised to the customers, flat promoters have to plan the availability of raw material which are required for the construction of flats.It is suggested to have group of people to provide after sale service at flats/apartments.It is suggested to the flat promoters to develop their HR skill, since they have to manage both literate and illiterate labors.

CONCLUSION
City like Trichy/Tamilnadu cannot grow horizontally because of population growth.Because of the soaring land price and space crunch, city can develop only vertically.Constructions of flats/apartments are gaining momentum in Trichy like Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai because of rising popularity.Because of the overwhelming demand for flats/apartments and also due to heavy competition, building contractors/flat promoters have to understand the expectation and requirements of the buyer.Based upon the expectations, requirements, lifestyles of the buyers, flat promoters have to incorporate those things (QFD-Quality Function Deployment) in the construction of flats/apartments.Because of the changing life style and urbanization, in order to satisfy the existing buyers (customers) and to acquire new customers for future construction projects, it is suggested to conduct this kind of survey once in a year to understand the customer's opinion about the various aspects of apartments/flats (Appendix).

Table 6 :
Total variance explained