Conceptual and methodological aspects of housing consumer behavior – characterizing the housing career

Abstract

This study aims to make a methodological contribution to post occupancy evaluation by studying the consumer behaviour and the concept of housing career. The methodological proposal is concerned not only with technical factors related to the built environment, but also with the behaviour of housing demand, focussed on the customer satisfaction formation process and the residential mobility. A multiple case study method was adopted, in which three case studies of housing careers were carried out. An overview of the multiple case study is presented, describing the main sources of data, the activities carried out, and the procedures adopted for data selection and analysis. The family socio-economic profile, the housing career, and the purchasing and use processes are among the factors that were investigated. The research work also involved some technical aspects of the buildings. Among the conclusions, the importance of behavioural aspects of different family arrangements on the process of customer satisfaction formation and the causes for residential mobility throughout the housing career are pointed out.