Social Utilities versus House Prices as Scales of Residential Preferences for Homes’ Attributes 30 Years Apart

Abstract

One of two scales of residential preferences in a resident’s mind is their social and environmental utilities for homes’ attributes’ levels. The other is their willingness to pay for these attributes’ levels as it conforms with prices in the local real estate market. Convergence between two scales of preferences has one mentally superseding the other as primary. Divergence will more likely produce a consumption disequilibrium as the gap in price between affordable socially and monetarily most preferred attributes’ levels of homes. Convergences and divergences between these two fluctuating scales of preferences are measured with three interrelated datasets for up to 74 respondents and 3,000 single- detached(-like) houses in each of Saskatoon SK in 1987 and Windsor ON in 2020. Results are that respondents have diverging monetized and social utilities for up to seven of 12 generic attributes of homes in 1987 and/or 2020. They therefore will frequently have large consumption disequilibria for these attributes. The maximum of these will average up to one-half more than the price of an attribute’s socially most preferred level if they want its monetarily most preferred level. Despite this, a typical respondent is not behaving as if asset accumulation potentials realized in prices for homes’ attributes levels have superseded social needs and desires for up to seven attributes’ levels, even at times such as after moving in or when planning on moving out.