Single mother housing affordability

Abstract

Housing affordability issue usually involves middle and lower income earner groups. The Malaysian National Housing Policy main objective is to provide enough and affordable houses for all populations, especially for lower income earners. This is to ensure all Malaysian have better shelters to live in. Nevertheless, in this case, single mother is the group that been most affected compare to other groups of population. Thus, two main questions arise; do the houses offered in the market consistent with the single mother's affordability, and what are the type and affordable housing price for single mothers? Therefore, the objectives of this study are to examine the factors that influence single mother's problems in effort to buy house and to identify the house type and price range they can afford. Questionnaires were used to collect the primary data. 95 working single mothers who are registered with the Johor State Department of Women and Family were randomly selected as a respondent. The data gathered will then be later analyzed by using descriptive analysis, Cross Tabulation, Correlation Analysis and Content Analysis using SPSS. The findings show that housing price is the main factors that influence single mothers affordability followed by household income and socio economic factor, which is race, education, age and number of household. Besides, it also shows that single and double storey house in a range between RM50, 000 to RM100, 000 is the house type and price affordable to them. The findings also suggest that government should control house price in the market, loosening the loan conditions, the payment of 10 percent deposit and also loosening the rate interest. For the developer, they should increase the number of housing for target groups and carry out the market study to identify the affordable housing price.