Analysis of Differences in Factors that Supporting Home Purchase Decision of Home Buyers at 39th -43rd House and Condo Expo: Before and after the Emergence of COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak

Abstract

This research aims to compare homebuyers' behavior and support factors for decision-making before and after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The key question is whether the pandemic has changed homebuyers' behavior and decision-making process. Statistical analysis is used to examine the relationship between variables affecting the purchase decision before and after the pandemic. The data is collected from questionnaires administered by the Real Estate Information Center, Government Housing Bank, to 1,081 homebuyers at the 39th-43rd House and Condo expo.

The results of the study found that there was inconsiderable difference in behavior related to attribute information such as the gender of house buyers. Before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the proportion of buyers was higher than after the COVID-19 occurred. The results found that before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the majority of buyers were males in the age under 30 years and more interested in buying condominiums than other types of housing. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, it was found that the majority of buyers were female in the age between 31 to 40 years and more interested in buying townhouses than other types of housing. When considering the variables related to factors supporting home purchases before and after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, by sorting the factors with the highest importance to the factors with the least importance, it was found that the location factor is the most important. Secondly were services, pricing, and credit factors respectively. When considering all aspects of information, conclusions are shown that before and after the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, gender does not affect changed. However, it was found that the residential style has changed mainly from condominiums to townhouse and the age range with a higher average age of home purchaser effect in the same direction as the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. That is, when most people have to change their behavior to work from home, there is an increased demand for usable space for working at home.