Housing Consumption and Residential Mobility

Abstract

This study uses a large longitudinal data set of housing and mobility information for the city of Tilburg, The Netherlands, to examine the relationships among households and the housing stock. The focus is on the nature of housing consumption by tenure and life-cycle characteristics of households and the impact of space requirements on residential mobility. Stepwise logit and discriminant models show that space considerations are central stimuli in the mobility process and that square meters per person is the most consistent predictor of the propensity to move. A specific study of the role of births indicates that such additions to families, especially for private renters and renters in the public sector, are a significant trigger in the mobility process.

Key Words:

• residential mobility
• housing consumption
• housing stock
• tenure
• life cycle
• housing type
• discriminant analysis
• logit analysis