Abstract

Urbanization, which is espoused in the National Economic Policy (NEP), has contributed to the significant development of the housing sector in Malaysia. As they provide houses, private developers earn significant amounts of profit. However, after more than 30 years of implementation of NEP, indigenous developers are still conspicuously under-represented in the sector. Thus, a research on indigenous entrepreneurs in the housing development industry in Malaysia was conducted to get a background of the registered indigenous developers, their business setup, their business strategy, and the performance of their firms. There were 689 questionnaires distributed, of which 71 were returned and only 38 questionnaires were answered by indigenous housing development companies. To deeply capture their operation, interviews had been conducted on 18 respondents. Findings obtained from the survey and the interviews help explain their involvement in the housing industry. At the end of this chapter, few recommendations are given to help empower indigenous housing developers and enhance their participation in the housing industry. 

Key words: Indigenous housing developers, National Economic Policy (NEP), business characteristics, performance.