Castles in the Sky

Abstract

Americans' expressed preferences for housing suggest that they prefer to own single-family homes surrounded by other single-family homes. Yet such preferences manifest in housing market behavior or attitudes fail to account for the multidimensional complexity of the housing bundle and the predictability of housing bundle packages found within the market. This research examines how people actually evaluate the myriad of attributes associated with the housing bundle. It explores how a sample of Syracuse metropolitan residents evaluate particular housing and neighborhood characteristics. Applying the factorial survey method, this article examines the values placed on characteristics when people solely evaluate housing structures, the character and composition of neighborhood, and composite descriptions of housing and neighborhood. This study reveals no clear preferences for home ownership. Preferences for particular types of housing and for particular neighborhood compositions were modified when people evaluated complete housing descriptions that were not tied to real-world market constraints. These findings suggest that American housing preferences are not normative but may instead be derived from housing market incentives, housing availability, market segmentation, and land use policies. In short, market availability and incentives to own single-family homes appear to structure what people say they want.