Consumer dynamics on green homes: Awareness, attitudes and purchase intention

Residential buildings account for a considerable portion of energy consumption and carbon emissions. Given the rate of urban sprawl in Turkey, designing and marketing of new development projects without prioritizing ecological impact, causes further distress on climate and natural resources. The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of environmental concern, environmental awareness and subjective norms of people who plan to purchase a home in the short or long term on their attitudes towards green home and purchase intentions. In the study, the mediating effect of attitude towards green home between independent variables and purchase intention was also tested. In addition, it was analyzed whether price sensitivity has a moderating effect between attitude towards green home and purchase intention. A total of 332 people responded to the survey, and 240 people who were suitable for the study sample were included in the analysis. SPSS 26 program was used for factor, reliability, and regression analyses in testing the hypotheses, the Process Plugin of SPSS was used for evaluating mediator and moderator variables. The results of the analyses showed that environmental awareness and subjective norms have a significant relationship on attitude towards green home, and social norms on purchase intention. In addition, while it is supported that the attitude towards green home has a partial mediating effect between subjective norm and purchase intention, the moderating effect of price sensitivity could not be supported. The study aims shed light to future academic studies on consumer housing preferences and practically guide the marketing strategies of the developers and real estate agencies as well as non-governmental organizations in the sector in promoting environmentally friendly residential buildings.