A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for t he Award of the Degree of Master of Science

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1988

Over the last few years a number of housing limited companies have come up in Dhaka and they are building large apartment buildings for sale as condominium units. However, building a house is still an individual effort managed directly by the prospective owner. This system entails inefficiencies, both in the construction and in the utilization of land. The new housing companies have introduced an institutionalized and professional approach towards apartment building. It is now time to explore the possibility of beginning a commercial housing development industry to produce ready-made houses for sale to different income groups in Dhaka. The potential and the requirements, barriers and issues for establishing this industry were studied. All the possibilities related to the potential demand for and supply of ready-made houses were systematically explored for identifying the realistic requirements and barriers. Information was collected through field surveys with interviews with both the housing developers as well as the potential buyers. The results of the study show that there is a substantial potential market demand for ready-made houses within the buyers affordability, and that from the developers point of view, it would be profitable to supply ready- made houses. It wa s also found out that the present government has the willingness to commence ready-made house construction and they have already started promoting it . Therefore, as well as providing serviced plots or apartments, the developers can supply serviced plots with complete houses for sale. They could also supply serviced plots with partly- built houses so that the buyers can get a cheaper unit with the opportunity for incremental expansion o f the house in accordance with their own preference and affordability.