Influences of housing attributes on house purchase intention, mediated by housing preference and gender as a moderator among consumers in Kota Kinabalu

This study has been done as partial fulfilment of the requirements for the postgraduate degree of Master in Business Administration (MBA) at the School of Business, Economics and Accountancy, University Malaysia Sabah (UMS). It dealt with issues related to the housing industry, within the study area, which was the district of Kota Kinabalu (KK), Sabah. The basis of the study was the Theory of Buyer Behaviour Model by Howard & Sheth (1973) and Loudon & Dell Bitta (1993). The Perception Construct of the Model consisted of the Independent Variables called Housing Attributes (House Features, Living Space, Distance and Environment). The Learning Construct consisted of the Mediating Variable (Housing Preference). The Output Construct consisted of the Dependent Variable (House Purchase Intention). The so called Exogenous Variables of the model consisted of four Independent Variables (Superstition-Numbers, Superstition-Ghosts, Developer and Financing) and a demographic factor (Gender). The results of the study found that: Five of the eight Independent Variables (House Features, Financing, Distance, Environment and Superstition-Numbers) have significant relationships with the Dependent Variable (House Purchase Intention); Housing Preference (Mediator) mediates on the relationships between two Independent Variables (House Features and Financing) and the Dependent Variable (House Purchase Intention); and the demographic factor of Gender (Moderator) moderates on the relationships between two Independent Variables (Distance and Developer) and the Dependent Variable (House Purchase Intention)