Analysis of the housing market with the roles of private house-builders on the middle-income group segment in Yangon, Myanmar

Yangon is the prime city of a low-urbanised Myanmar where housing shortages have been occurring with the acute insufficient supply by private-house builders. In this study, the main objectives are to analyse the urban housing market in Yangon and to explore the dominant conditions and constraints that hinder the private house-builders' role on the middle-income group (MIG) segment. A mixed research method, including qualitative and quantitative approaches, is applied to analyse data obtained from both primary and secondary sources. The results show that Yangon housing market is a poorly functioning market with fragile key players such as government, financial institutions and private house-builders. This article shed light upon the current housing situation as a distorted market with a large unmet demand for urban housing under five dominant conditions. While current housing condition is inadequate for Yangonites, Yangon will be mega city due to rapid urbanisation during a few decades and immense housing shortage will be one of the major urban agendas in future. Being under transition period, Myanmar government should facilitate the private sector as a key driver of urban housing and they should set up actionable policy and plans which can overcome key constraints of private house-builders in line with enabling approach as current global housing policy paradigm in the developing countries. Among the 25 constraints, seven are key constraints mainly on the underdeveloped financial sector, weak business sector and high bureaucratic cost.