Priority setting of preferential parameters for home purchase in Chongqing — An analytic hierarchy process approach

Abstract

This chapter reports the preliminary findings from stage 1 of a collaborative study on affordable housing undertaken by a tripartite research team from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Chongqing University, and the South Bank University. The research is aimed to use the concept of industrialized affordable housing to examine the feasibility and viability of its use, and to design suitable types of industrialized affordable housing for use in Chongqing, by maximizing the use of indigenous resources from the region. Analytical hierarchy process, an analytical tool using a deductive approach, organizes the basic rationality by breaking down a problem into its smaller constituent parts and then calls for only simple pair-wise comparison judgments, to develop priorities in each hierarchy. The prioritization problem has been broken down into a hierarchy of interrelated decision levels, each of which involves a number of factors. Level 1 describes the objective (goal) in the decision-making problem while level 2, 3, and 4 contain factors that are perceived as important attributes affecting the level 1 decision. Finally, level 5 gives the decision alternatives and the factors are distilled from a comprehensive literature review of housing preferences.