Resident Satisfaction of Affordable Housing

Since the housing reform in 1998, efforts have been made to develop affordable housing and an average of seven million units of affordable housing have been built each year in urban Chinese cities (National Bureau of Statistics, 2016). As a response to the national policy, the Qingdao Municipal Government has listed the construction of affordable housing as one of the priority in planning guidelines for 12 consecutive years. While living conditions of low-and middle-income families have been improved, there is little attention towards resident satisfaction. The aim of this thesis is to assess the relationship of demographics, communal, and social factors to resident satisfaction of affordable housing. This study focuses not only on investigating the degree of satisfaction but also on their social needs and emotional responses as important measures of resident satisfaction. A stratified systematic sample were collected in Qingdao during survey with 84 residents in “Economic and Comfortable Housing (经济适用房),” “Price Limited Housing（限价房）,” and “Low Rent Housing（廉租房）.” Descriptive statistics and Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) Regression analysis was used to investigate the direction and magnitude of the effects of influencing factors to resident satisfaction and examine if the relationship between them varies according to affordable housing types. It is found that the overall level of satisfaction of affordable housing in Qingdao is moderate, and especially the level of satisfaction with housing quality and built environment of the community is poor. Demographic features such as gender, household income, payment method for housing reflected significantly positive impacts on resident satisfaction. Moreover, affordable housing types indeed generates differentiation towards residents’ feelings and perceptions.