Little to choose, much to lose. Freedom of choice and residential satisfaction

Recently, there has been wide interest in the freedom of choice house seekers have on the urban housing market, especially the freedom of choice of those with limited financial resources. Affordable dwellings are often concentrated in less attractive neighbourhoods. It can be expected that people living there would prefer to live elsewhere, had they been given the chance. Therefore it is often assumed that residents of such areas had little freedom of choice at the time they moved in, and that they thus not reside there based on positive motivations. Limited freedom of choice is considered to be problematic, since it might affect residents¿ satisfaction with their residential environment negatively. Yet, the association between experienced freedom of choice and residential satisfaction has not been thoroughly examined in the field of housing studies. The aim of the present paper is to examine whether or not residents of low-income neighbourhoods `freely¿ choose their dwelling and/or neighbourhood (compared to residents of other neighbourhoods), and to what extent an experienced limited freedom of choice affects their evaluation of the residential environment. Our findings indicate that residents of low-income neighbourhoods somewhat more often experienced a limited freedom of housing choice, and that for all residents of social housing experienced freedom of choice affects their residential satisfaction.