Goal programming and fuzzy approach in determining mutual house price and affordability: a study in Kedah, Malaysia

Home ownership is a complex issue involving many determinants. Affordability is the limelight as well as delayed completion. Basically, there are three parties involved in a housing development; private developer, government, and house buyer. The government has reserved its role by organizing several programs such as ‘PR1MA’ and ‘My First Home’ in order to overcome the issue. The programs are managed through public-private partnership (PPP). On side of the house buyer, apart from house price, there are other preferences considered. The interaction between these parties
becomes complex due to disparity in preferences and target. The purpose of this study is to develop an interaction model in determining a mutual house price. Besides, the affordability level of home ownership is also measured. The preferences and the target of each party were investigated, and their constraints were established to be modelled by using Goal Programming approach. The constraints are based on the economics factors that influenced house price. Next, the interaction among parties was simulated to get the average mutual house price. There are 193 house buyers, two private
developers, and a government in Kedah involved, hence, 386 simulations were performed. Then, the level of affordability of owning a house was measured by using Fuzzy Logic approach. Findings show that the average mutual house price suggested
by the model is RM169, 879.20. It is shown that the residents of Kedah afford to own low-cost houses, in accordance to the average mutual house price suggested by the interaction model. The suggested average house price could be a reference to all related parties in housing development. The construction of the model emphasized the inclusion of human interactions along with economic factors.