Search results

The purpose of this study is to examine the buyers’ preferences influencing the purchase of privately developed affordable housing in Kolkata and to determine whether unsold houses result from misalignment with these preferences.

The literature review and user-opinion survey identified 119 independent variables that indicate buyers’ preferences. A questionnaire survey of 383 households in affordable housing units from 32 housing complexes in Kolkata recorded buyers’ preferences and satisfaction against the independent variables grouped under five levels of characteristics. The product weights of variables derived from the rank sum method and percentage satisfaction give the Utility Score. Multivariate regression and univariate linear regressions were conducted to determine the significance of each Level of characteristics and each variable, identifying the significant variables that would affect the sale of affordable houses.

The multivariate regression analysis has indicated that 68.56% of the variation in the percentage of unsold houses was explained by the five utility scores, which affirms that misalignment with buyers’ preferences significantly affects the sale of privately developed affordable houses. Furthermore, building and neighbourhood-level utility show the highest significance as predictors, while city-level and miscellaneous utility have moderate significance, but housing complex-level utility lacks statistical significance.

This study addresses a research gap in privately developed affordable housing in Kolkata, enhancing understanding of buyer preferences in this segment.

Given the many activities of Nigerian investors in the crypto ecosystem, this paper investigates the level of their awareness, attitudes, risk tolerance, experience, reasons for investing and level of financial literacy.

The research approach is based on a self-administered questionnaire. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) permitted the use of its reliable and validated survey instrument, administered in Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam in 2019. The results are tabulated and analyzed.

The key results include the participation of respondents, who are generally young males, not fully financially literate but risk-averse. Many held the false view that investing in global markets is a higher risk than in national markets. Their reasons for investing in crypto include the fear of missing out on good opportunities and the desire to have fun. The results also revealed that social media, conversations with non-experts and online articles are among the most used investment information sources, highlighting the role of digital platforms and informal discussions in shaping perceptions and knowledge about cryptocurrencies. Investments in cryptos are financed through savings, regular monthly budgets or borrowed from friends or family. As for specific attitudes to risk, the results suggest that for most respondents, preserving their invested capital is of paramount importance.

The importance of this research also resides in the possibility of comparing the crypto ecosystem in Asia with Nigeria because the same OECD data instrument is employed in data collection. Moreover, this study is the most comprehensive research about Nigerian investors in cryptocurrencies.

This paper aims to provide an exemplary application of an indicative post-occupancy evaluation (POE) on an organizational multistorey residential apartment building.

This research comprises of mixed qualitative and quantitative approaches. The methodology commences with a review of the recent literature, identification of performance elements, conduct of walk-through, distribution and collection of users' surveys and the development of short and long-term recommendations, where an adequate sample of users were approached for conducting a focus group interview session.

The research identifies 74 performance elements that were clustered into technical, namely (thermal, acoustic and visual comforts, indoor air quality and safety and security), functional, namely (design adequacy, finishing, furnishing, fittings and equipment and building surroundings) dimensions and behavioral, namely (apartment building attributes and managerial and logistical support). The questionnaire survey aimed to solicit users' opinions upon the occupied case study residential facility.

The research identifies areas of occupants' satisfaction and dissatisfaction in a typical multistorey residential building, as a part of a community housings for a mega organization, located in Saudi Arabia. The identification of these areas serves as a lesson learned for future developments, design considerations and implications. Hence, improving the well-being and comfort of its employees.

This paper seeks to establish design quality indicators (DQIs) that can be utilized for assessing the design of community centers, with an emphasis on the technical, functional, and behavioral performance domains.

A comprehensive literature review resulted in identifying 79 DQIs for community centers. A three round Delphi evaluation approach was utilized to rate the importance of the DQIs through their relative importance index (RII) values. The assessment of the DQIs involved a diverse group of stakeholders including facilities managers, architects/engineers (A/Es), community centers’ staff, and regular visitors of community centers.

The majority of the established DQIs were considered to be either “Very Important” or “Important”.

The established DQIs can be utilized to identify best practices in the design of community centers and benchmark the performance of different community centers.

The design quality of community centers could significantly impact the community's quality of life and user experience. The development of DQIs provides for enhanced accountability and improved service delivery for the communities they serve. This enables community centers to be more effective, efficient, and responsive to the needs of the users they support.