Microbehavioural Location Choice Process: Estimation of a Random Parameter Model for Residential Mobility

This paper presents a conceptual modeling framework of Residential Mobility and Location Choice process consisting of three sequential steps. It develops a random parameter model for the first step of making residential mobility decision at the disaggregate level of the household that incorporates individual heterogeneity in the panel data model. A 1998 retrospective residential mobility survey of 280 households in the Greater Toronto Area is used to demonstrate the effects of residential stressors on the decision to become active in the housing market. The paper finds that most stressors that relate to life cycle events, neighborhood dynamics and housing market conditions are significant determinants of residential mobility.