An assessment of housing affordability for young professional in greater Kuala Lumpur : residual income and housing transitions approaches

Abstract

This study identified the housing affordability factors among young professionals aged between 25 and 35 working or residing in the Greater Kuala Lumpur. Young professionals in this study refer to at least bachelor degree graduates and narrowed to the built environment profession namely engineer, architect, urban planner, and quantity surveyor (QS). In assessing housing affordability, two different approaches were applied: economic and social. The residual income model (RIM) was used to measure housing affordability from the economic perspective, while the concepts of housing pathways and housing transitions were integrated to explore the aspect of affordability from the social perspective. Five research objectives were composed in this study: (1) To define the young professionals, (2) To identify the young professional group that is adversely affected by housing affordability, (3) To determine housing affordability factors through RIM, (4) To explore housing affordability amongst young professionals through housing pathways, and finally (5) To recommend the success factors of housing affordability. The question nnaires were distributed amongst 341 respondents selected through stratified random sampling and the outcomes were analysed via binary logistic regression (BLR). Additionally, 14 interviewees were involved in the semi-structure interview session and the data were analysed via narrative analysis. The findings revealed that the age range of 25-35 was more appropriate to define the young professionals for this study. Those young professionals between 25 and 28 years old were more affected by housing affordability and amongst all the professions taken into consideration; engineers appeared to be the most affordable ones for housing. The statistical findings showed that the significant predictors comprised of professionals (engineer, architect, QS), presence of children, household income, household expenditure, transportation cost, housing cost, and housing location (Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya and Putrajaya). Apart from these factors, demographics, employment, housing history, health, and aspiration were explicitly explored during the interview sessions. The most remarkable contribution of this study is the discovery of success factors that led young people to afford housing, which are: early awareness, enhanced financial literacy, committed in career, and income diversification. Finally, this study suggests that in order to develop the standard income for young professionals to evade low income offer, enhancing financial literacy and eventually encouraging young professionals to involve in investment are of utmost importance.