
Here’s a stunning conclusion from a New Zealand study of occupant satisfaction in major styles of housing. Public Housing tops the occupant satisfaction scale.
Now surely there must be some error here in the methodology of this study! Everyone knows the winner must be home ownership after all those multi-millions owed and paid to the banking industry as well as a lesser known truism: ‘Be it Ever so Mortgaged, there’s no place like home!’
Isn’t satisfaction the final worldwide customer objective for wringing the last drop of satisfaction out of the mortgage dollar?
Or does home ownership offer too many unsatisfactory experiences, such as occasionally shoveling shit out of a sewer-flooded basement?
Whatever the explanation, we suffer from mild shock at the astonishing lack of satisfaction from New Zealand homeowners. Let us turn to the remaining, and now most obvious, source of housing satisfaction: the premium benefits of rental accommodation offered on the free market. There, conscientious landlords turn tragic home accidents into carefree experiences. You know, like the bird strike that cracks a picture window. Let the landlord take care of it!
But often they don’t, do they? And as it happens, this form of free market rental housing does not move up to the top of the satisfaction list.
Which brings us to New Zealand’s astonishing reality: government and non-profit supported public housing is the winner of the housing satisfaction race!
Come on, now! These are low income people. How dare they be the happiest/most satisfied?
So just what elevates public housing to number 1? You can find speculation in the study described in the following article.
The study’s authors also recommend specific changes in housing policy to extend the benefits shown in the study to private renters and owners.
Read more at SPRINGERLINK: Housing Tenure and Subjective Wellbeing: The Importance of Public Housing