People's beliefs and values as determinants of housing preferences and simulated choices

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Abstract
The possibility to predict residential preferences and choices from people's beliefs about the effects of different housing alternatives on the attainment of a number of life values was investigated by means of a questionnaire answered by 36 Swedish adults. Housing alternatives were described to the respondents in terms of a number of attribute dimensions. Two models were tested. The first model was based on the assumption that the evaluation of a given level of a housing attribute is determined by a weighted sum of the respondent's evaluations of the life values which the attribute is believed to lead to, and that the evaluation of each housing alternative is obtained by summing this value‐fulfilment across all attributes. This model was quite successful in predicting preference ratings of the housing alternatives. When predicting simulated choices among housing alternatives, however, the second model, which did not presuppose additivity across attributes, yielded more successful predictions. For data aggregated across the whole sample of respondents, the number of housing attributes contributing to the predictions of the preferences was larger than the corresponding number for the choices. Finally, intrinsic housing attributes such as cost and size were found to be more important than location and neighbourhood attributes for both preferences and choices.

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