ABSTRACT
Residential mobility—moving from one location in the city to another—is the process that creates change in the housing market. Together with new construction of housing, it is one of the prime stimuli for the changes in the housing market and, in turn, influences housing demand and housing consumption. In the end, mobility is interesting because it is the behavior whereby individuals and households match their household needs for residential space to the available housing stock. In the normal operation of the housing market, the mismatch of housing and households is the critical driver in creating mobility and housing selection. Of course, this is an imperfect mechanism, and there is considerable regional and national variation in the ability of the mobility process to accomplish the matching of households and housing. Preferences of mobile households cannot always be satisfied, because of lack of opportunities in the housing stock on the one hand and income constraints which limit choice on the other. At the same time, the mobility process, even as modified by government intervention and the varying composition of the housing market, is the mechanism that brings the matching into focus.
