Abstract
Housing well-being refers to the home resident’s cumulative positive and negative affect associated with the purchase, preparation, ownership, use, and maintenance of the current home, and the selling of the previous home. Housing well-being is assumed to occur when the home is bought with the least amount of effort (purchase), the home is prepared for use to meet the needs of the new occupants (preparation), ownership signals status and enhances the home owner’s financial portfolio (ownership), the home serves the housing needs of the residents (use), the maintenance, renovation, and repair in the home are minimal, least costly, and effortless (maintenance), and the sale of the home is transacted with the least amount of effort and most financial gain (selling). Based on this conceptualization of housing well-being, we conducted an exploratory study to identify the sources of satisfaction related to the purchase, preparation, ownership, use, and maintenance of the current home, and the selling of the previous home. The exploratory study also helped us articulate a theoretical model describing the interrelationships among the housing well-being constructs and their consequence: the perceived quality-of-life (QOL) impact of the home. The exploratory study helped us also to develop survey measures, which in turn were validated through two additional studies involving surveys of home owners in the US and Korea.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aaker D.A. and Day G.S. (1982). Consumerism: Search for the Public Interest. The Free Press, New York
Ahlbrandt R. and Cunningham J. (1979). A New Public Policy for Neighborhood Preservation . Praeger, New York
Andrews F.M. and Withey S.B. (1976). Social Indicators of Well-Being. Plenum Press, New York
Baillie S. and Peart V. (1992). Determinants of housing satisfaction for older married and unmarried women in Florida. Housing and Society 19: 101–116
Birks D.F. and Southan J.M. (1992). An evaluation of the rationale of tenant satisfaction survey. Housing Studies 7: 299–308
Boyle M.A. and Kiel K.A. (2001). A survey of house price hedonic studies of the impact of environmental externalities. Journal of Real Estate Literature 9: 117–144
Burby R.J. and Rohe W.M. (1990). Providing for the housing needs of the elderly. Journal of the American Planning Association 56: 324–340
Campbell A., Converse P.E. and Rodgers W.J. (1976). The Quality of American Life: Perceptions, Evaluations, and Satisfaction . Russell Sage Foundation, New York
Dahmann D.C. (1985). Assessments of neighborhood quality in metropolitan America. Urban Affairs Quarterly 20: 511–535
Fried M. and Gleicher P. (1961). Some sources of residential satisfaction in an urban slum. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 19: 539–568
Galster G. (1987). Identifying the correlates of dwelling satisfaction: an empirical Critique. Environment and Behavior 19: 539–568
Galster G.C. and Hesser G.W. (1981). Residential satisfaction – compositional and contextual correlates. Environment and Behavior 13: 735–758
Lansing J., Marans R. and Zehner R. (1970). Planned Residential Environments . Institute for Survey Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Lee D.-J., Sirgy M.J., Larsen V. and Wright N. (2002). Developing a subjective measure of consumer well being. Journal of Macromarketing 22: 158–169
Lee Y. and Weber M. (1984). Development of an instrument to measure the aesthetic quality of housing environment. Social Indicators Research 15: 255–280
Lindquist J.D. and Sirgy M.J. (2003). Shopper, Buyer and Consumer Behavior. Atomic Dog Publishing, Cincinnati
Lu M. (1999). Determinants of residential satisfaction: ordered logit vs. regression models. Growth and Change 30: 264–266
McCracken G. (1984). The Long Interview . Sage, Beverly Hills
Morris E., Crull S. and Winter M. (1976). Housing norms, housing satisfaction and the propensity to move. Journal of Marriage and the Family 38: 309–320
Onibokun A.G. (1976). Social system correlates of residential satisfaction. Environment and Behavior 8: 323–345
Parkes A., Kearns A. and Atkinson R. (2002). The Determinants of Neighbourhood Dissatisfaction . ESRC Centre for Neighbourhood Research, Bristol
Rohe, W.M. and M.A. Stegman: 1994, The impact of home ownership on the social and political involvement of low-income people. Urban Affairs Quarterly 30
Rossi P.H. (1980). Why Families Move . Sage, Beverly Hills
Satsangi M. and Kearns A. (1992). The use and interpretation of tenant satisfaction surveys in British social housing. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 10: 317–331
Sirgy M.J. (2001). Handbook of Quality-of-Life Research . Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht
Sirgy M.J. and Cornwell T. (2002). How neighborhood features affect quality of life. Social Indicators Research 59: 79–114
Speare A. (1974). Residential satisfaction as an intervening variable in residential mobility. Demography 11: 1973–1988
Steenkamp J.-B.E.M. and Baumgartner H. (1998). Assessing measurement invariance in cross-national consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research 25: 78–90
Turnbull G.K. (1996). Real estate brokers, non-price competition and the housing market. Real Estate Economics 24: 293–316
Vale L.J. (1997). Empathological places: residents’ ambivalence toward remaining in public housing. Journal of Planning Education and Research 16: 159–175
Varaday D.P. (1983). Determinants of residential mobility. Journal of the American Planning Association 49: 184–199
Varady D.P. (1986). Neighbourhood Upgrading: A Realistic Assessment . State University of New York Press, Albany
Varady D.P. and Carrozza M. A. (2000). Toward a better way to measure customer satisfaction levels in public housing: a report from Cincinnati. Housing Studies 15: 797–825
Varady D.P. and Preiser W.F.E. (1998). Scattered-site public housing and housing satisfaction: implications for the new public housing program. Journal of the American Planning Association 64: 189–208
Western J.S., Weldon P.D. and Haung T.T. (1974). Housing and satisfaction with environment in Singapore. Journal of the American Institute of Planners 40: 201–208
Whiteford P.C. and Morris E.W. (1986). Age, tenure and housing satisfaction. Housing and Society 13: 160–171
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Grzeskowiak, S., Sirgy, M.J., Lee, DJ. et al. Housing Well-Being: Developing and Validating a Measure. Soc Indic Res 79, 503–541 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-005-5667-4
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-005-5667-4