The housing ladder, the housing life-cycle and the housing life-course: Upward and downward movement among repeat home-buyers in a US metropolitan housing market

This research models US home- owners' decisions to move up or down in price. The models are based on three common conceptualisations: the housing ladder, the housing life-cycle and the housing life-course that use age of the householder as a measure of position in life. Age can be a proxy for many characteristics and we test several alternative measures using unique survey data that allow us to examine specific life- course variables. We conclude that, on an empirical level, age works reasonably well. However, we prefer a more complete formulation that includes presence of children, divorced or separated householder, income, age at first home-ownership and duration of ownership as being conceptually more accurate and more useful in policy-making.