Horizontal housing property market

Demand for housing in urban centres is a common issue. Colombo, the commercial capital of Sri Lanka, has been witnessing a surge of condominiums and housing estates in its core and peripheral locations in the past two decades due to economic liberalization coupled with policy directives aimed at an increased participation of the private sector. This paper presents a research study on factors affecting customer attraction and saleability of Housing Estates in Sri Lanka and the levels of customer satisfaction in these housing estates. The study is interesting because, satisfied customers are the backbone of the housing estate industry. Both structured and unstructured surveys were used for data collection; and the samples comprised property developers, customers and tenants. The study identifies six factors that affect significantly on demand for housing estates. It further analyse the factors that customers consider in opting for a house in a housing estate as opposed to other dwelling options. Then the study extends to model the customer satisfaction in the housing estates. The model is based on the definition of customer satisfaction: the extent to which a product perceived performance matches a buyer's expectations. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/besl.v7i1.1947 Built-Environment Sri Lanka Vol.7(1) 2007 16- 2