Journal of the Korean Housing Association ISSN:2234-3571(Print) 2234-2257(Online) 한국주거학회논문집

Due to the mass production of housing in Korea, homogeneous current housing may fail to represent residents’ preferences, especially for the elderly. The purpose of this study is to identify the preferred properties of consumers for accessible housing and to examine whether cluster analysis can identify groups of residents with similar accessible housing preferences. Using a conjoint method, prospective users can jointly consider all accessible attributes, with cost attributes suggested by this study. Four categories (accessibility, safety, convenience, cost), 7 attributes (clear width, level difference, installation of grab bars, installation of elevators: only for single house type, non slippery floor materials, safety alarms, service control devices, cost) and 2 levels for each attribute were chosen. A total of 374 questionnaires were collected through a questionnaire survey method. This study employed ratings-based Conjoint analysis and the respondents ranked each card, which consisted of a set of accessible housing attributes. The data were analyzed using SPSS 16.0. The findings of this study have identified 3-4 clusters for each housing sub market. Each cluster has a different combination of socio-demographic characteristics and residential characteristics, and showed the relative importance or preference values for each accessible attribute of the segmentation. For the single housing, one group of people strongly preferred installation of elevator. The results suggested that better customization of housing could be more appealing to the different clusters of residents, providing accessible housing with cost limitations.