Study on Determinants of Graduates’ Housing Demand

Abstract

Humans need certain basics for survival. Food, clothing and shelter are some. Shelter is one of the requirements to address the physiological needs of humans. Huge portion of the income is investedin acquiring a houseto satisfy the physiological satisfaction.Based on the literature, demands for house depend on the several factors which may influence first time buyers’ decision making. Among the factors are age, gender, marital status, income, number of family members, level of education, A significant phenomenon of the residential property market in Sri Lanka in recent years is the unprecedented on-going constructions. Buyers are interested to buy a readymade rather than to rely on constructions. Youngers, who are thirsty on higher education, come to Colombo for their university education because a considerable number of universities situated in Western province. Ultimately being graduates engaged in the employment opportunities in and around Colombo and become the immediate customers making a demand to readymade houses. The relationship of graduates as first time buyers and the demand for housing has not been adequately researched in Sri Lanka. The focus of this research is to identify the determinants of graduates housing demand and whether there is an impact to the ready-made housing demand.Randomly selected 64 graduates who are working in government organization were used to collect data through a structured questionnaire. Chi-Square Tests, independents sample t- test were used to identify the relationship between dependent and independents variables.Results revealed that Age, Marital status, monthly gross income, monthly permanent income, and years of work since graduations have a strong relationship with 0.23, 0.31, 0.44, 0.47, 0.38 to the housing demand. Level of education and gender were not strong significant impacted to the housing demand. The most of graduates still like to go for new construction for achieving their housing dream. According to the research monthly permanent income and monthly gross income are the significant factors that determined the graduates housing demand. Keywords: Graduate’s Housing Demand, Housing Intension, Determinants of Housing Demand