Housing environment preference of young consumers in Guangzhou, China : Using the analytic hierarchy process

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand the demand pattern and housing preference of young consumers in Guangzhou, China. This study seeks to offer more information for urban planners and housing developers about housing demand from social and cultural perspective. Design/methodology/approach – Assisted by a questionnaire survey, a housing environment preference pattern is generated by ranking quality attributes with respect to their relative importance to young consumers. The outcome is analysed by pair‐wise comparison of attributes based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Findings – It is found that “public traffic network” (11.72 per cent), “proximity to workplace” (10.22 per cent), “sense of safety” (9.74 per cent), “medical and health facility” (8.54 per cent) and “education facility” (8.50 per cent) are the top five determinants in housing consumption of young consumers in Guangzhou. Research limitation/implication – The database used is relatively small. Originality/value – The housing environment has been well‐researched in developed countries, but not in Guangzhou, China. This is one of the few papers that looks at the housing physical and social environment preference for young consumers using an AHP framework.