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Factors Underlying Consumer Difficulties with the Homebuying Process
Author(s) -
White Betty Jo,
Barclay Nancy A.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
home economics research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.372
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1552-3934
pISSN - 0046-7774
DOI - 10.1177/1077727x8101000208
Subject(s) - surprise , sample (material) , listing (finance) , payment , consumption (sociology) , rank (graph theory) , psychology , database transaction , variation (astronomy) , statistics , order (exchange) , process (computing) , actuarial science , econometrics , marketing , social psychology , computer science , mathematics , economics , business , sociology , social science , chemistry , finance , chromatography , combinatorics , world wide web , programming language , physics , astrophysics , operating system
Data from a study identifying consumer difficulties with the homebuying process were analyzed. The instrument listing 66 potential difficulties was mailed to a random sample of 250 homebuyers to indicate those encountered during search, purchase, and first year of occupancy. They were also asked to identify the two problems considered most important and their perceived causes. The response rate was 80.4 percent. Of the 201 households who responded, 153 were eligible buyers. The mean total number of difficulties reported by the sample was 7.16. Problems most frequently reported were higher utility costs, foregone activities, mechani cal system problems, necessary repairs or adjustments, delayed closings, and overlapping payments. Frequency distribution comparisons between sample subgroups showed sim ilarities on the most frequent difficulties, but variation in both content and rank order for the most important problems. Mean comparison tests revealed significant differences in total number of difficulties on the variables purchaser experience, income level, and age of struc ture. The 30 items reported most frequently by respondents were factor analyzed to identify underlying constructs. Upon extraction and rotation, 27 variables loaded upon four factors which were named: surprise difficulties, new‐construction problems, financiallpersonal con sequences, and chain transaction constraints. Implications for further research and consumer education are drawn from the findings.