The Search Process in Residential Relocation

Abstract

The paper examines the search behavior of 380 movers who were interviewed within four months of moving to a new location. An indices of search behavior are established consisting of measurements of intensity of search, a search cluster and an index on the concentration of the search. A feature of the study is that data on all houses searched are included; as well as the actual house selected. The results indicate that the residential search behavior is a minimizing process. Only two to four houses were examined and the search time was less than a month. The search cluster data indicate that there was limited search in a spatial sense with inner city searchers which include the poor and some ethnic groups, as having the smallest search. From a locational point of view the inner areas portrayed intensive and clustered behavioral patterns while the suburban searchers were more casual and dispersed in their investigations.