A Master of Science thesis in Construction Management by Mohammad Said Jamal Abuhalimeh entitled, “Criteria Development for Affordable Housing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)”, submitted in May 2022. Thesis advisor is Dr. Salwa Beheiry. Soft copy is available (Thesis, Completion Certificate, Approval Signatures, and AUS Archives Consent Form).
Abstract
It is intuitive to believe that having a decent living habitat is the birth right of every human being. Nevertheless, many people face the global problem of securing decent affordable housing. The concept of affordability addresses the issue of housing for low-to-medium-income populations. Past studies addressed housing affordability in several countries, especially those with successful affordable housing programs such as Singapore and Hong Kong. However, the literature does not address the topic in the unique context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Thus, the objective of this study was to develop a framework for assessing housing affordability in the UAE and to determine the critical factors that affect affordability. The aim of the study was to facilitate the decision-making process in the UAE's housing development sector. A comprehensive literature review was carried out to examine the relevant factors affecting housing affordability. The factors were categorized into household and housing attributes, and macroeconomic variables. The factors were tailored to the UAE context and validated via housing industry experts’ input and used as a foundation to build the data collection tool. The factors were ranked using the Relative Importance Index (RII) and the data was collected from low-to-medium-income UAE residents and analysed. The results show the four most influential factors on housing affordability in the UAE are household age distribution (RII of 0.739), number of working adults in a household (RII of 0.708), housing cost (RII of 0.706), and the household income (RII of 0.690). In addition, data was collected and analysed to reflect the specific UAE factors influencing housing affordability, beyond the available literature. According to the 30-Percent Income / housing cost Ratio, more than 40% of the sample were housing-cost burdened. In addition, proximity to basic amenities was also highlighted as a constraint since 75% of the sample needed to drive to reach basic amenities and spend more than 10% of their monthly income on transportation. Moreover, 50% of the sample faced hardship covering their non-housing needs after paying housing expenditures and a significant portion of the sample around 72.5% would accordingly consider relocating outside the UAE.