Valuing Sustainable Housing for Urban Heat Mitigation: A Behavioral Perspective from Urban Households

Rapid housing expansion exacerbates the urban heat island (UHI) effect, yet the influence of household-level awareness on sustainable housing decisions remains underexplored, particularly in tropical contexts. This study integrates the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) into a moderated-mediation model to examine how UHI awareness shapes the relationships among attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, socioeconomic factors, purchase intention, and willingness to pay (WTP) for heat-mitigating housing. Survey data from 441 homebuyers in Bandung City, Indonesia, were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (SEM). Results reveal that awareness fundamentally alters decision pathways: without awareness, subjective norms (β = 0.066, p-value = 0.007) and perceived behavioral control (β = 0.050, p-value = 0.005) significantly influence WTP via purchase intention; with high awareness, attitude becomes the sole significant predictor (β = 0.109, p-value = 0.035), while the effects of social pressure (β = −0.015, p-value = 0.130) and perceived control (β = −0.005, p-value = 0.376) diminish. The model explains 50.1% of the variance in purchase intention (R2 = 0.501) but only 14.7% of the variance in WTP (R2 = 0.147), reflecting the low-price premiums respondents are willing to pay (0–5%). These findings highlight that climate-specific awareness acts as a cognitive filter, guiding pro-environmental housing choices, and underscore the importance of awareness-driven interventions for promoting sustainable urban development in tropical cities.