Purpose This study aims to explicitly explore the criteria or attributes that would influence buyer decision on purchasing residential property in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach Generally, a total of 80 respondents participated in this study, and they hail from two states in Malaysia, namely, Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. This study has structured the respondents’ demographic profiles into different categories such as gender, age, marital status, race, education, type of buyer and income level. For the purpose of analysis, this study has incorporated a versatile fuzzy approach known as the analytic hierarchy process to fulfil the objective of study. From the previous literatures, the extracted variables consist of home amenities, location, pricing, developer, financing, structural factor and community amenities. Findings The results from priority vector indicate that buyers give higher rank to the pricing (0.2330) criteria as the most influencing factor in buying residential property, followed by other criteria such as community amenities (0.1450), location (0.1430), financing (0.1420), structural factor (0.1260), home amenities (0.1060) and developer (0.1040) in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor. In addition, the consistency index of 0.00384, which is lower than 0.10 (rule of thumb), postulates that the respondents clearly understood the question requirements and there is no inconsistency involved in the result. Research limitations/implications This study attempts to discover how all those seven elements influence buyer decision on purchasing residential property. The results indicate that the outcome seems to be reliable and justifiable with the current period in the context of Malaysia housing sector. Originality/value This study is expected to provide more insights into the consistency of attributes that influence the purchase of residential property in the context of Malaysia. The points highlighted in this study are expected to benefit various parties such as potential home buyers, housing developers, marketers and government policy regulators, as well as academic institutions, to design a better policy or blueprint that can enhance the development of the housing sector in Malaysia.
