Motives for choice of housing tenure

Tenure choice is a very important element of housing choice, but amazingly little research has been done 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 is shown that many other aspects 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 much with life cycle situation but there also seem to be generational differences, where new generations have much stronger preferences for homeownership. The paper is based on a Danish survey on housing preferences.