Streamlining apartment provider evaluation: A spherical fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making model

Area of Science:

• Real Estate Market Analysis
• Consumer Behavior Studies
• Decision Science

Background:

• The Vietnamese real estate market is growing, requiring a deep understanding of consumer preferences.
• Effective decision-making frameworks are essential for real estate providers to meet consumer needs.
• Existing methods may not fully capture the complexities of consumer perceptions in dynamic markets.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model for evaluating apartment providers in Vietnam.
• To identify critical criteria influencing consumer apartment selection.
• To assess the performance of different fuzzy set-based decision-making techniques.

Main Methods:

• A two-stage MCDM model integrating the Delphi technique and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) based on Spherical Fuzzy Sets (SFSs).
• Validation through comparative analysis with Intuitionistic Fuzzy TOPSIS (IF-TOPSIS) and Fuzzy TOPSIS (F-TOPSIS).
• Assessment of rank correlations using five coefficients (Spearman, Kendall, Goodman-Kruskal, Weighted rank measure of correlation, Weighted Similarity).

Main Results:

• The proposed SF-Delphi and SF-TOPSIS model effectively identifies key consumer preferences for apartments in Vietnam.
• The legal aspect emerged as a highly significant factor in consumer apartment selection.
• High consistency (correlation coefficient > 0.7778) was observed among different fuzzy TOPSIS methods, confirming the model's robustness.
• Spherical Fuzzy Sets (SFSs) proved effective in handling the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) inherent in the market.

Conclusions:

• The integrated MCDM framework using SFSs provides a reliable method for evaluating apartment providers based on consumer preferences in Vietnam.
• The prominence of legal factors necessitates their careful consideration in real estate development and marketing.
• The study highlights the suitability of SFS-based MCDM for navigating uncertain business environments.