Motives for Tenure Choice during the Life Cycle: The Importance of Non-Economic Factors and Other Housing Preferences

Tenure choice is a very important element of housing choice, but amazingly little
research has been carried out about why different people prefer different housing tenures. In the economic literature tenure choice is mainly explained as a matter of financial investment. In this paper it is shown that many aspects other than investment considerations influence preferences for tenure. Preferences for homeownership are to a very large degree connected to detached houses with garden and the freedom to dispose over and adapt these houses is the most important motive. Preferences for tenure vary greatly with life-cycle situation but there also seems to be generational differences, where new generations have much stronger preferences for homeownership. The paper is based on a Danish survey on housing preferences.