Background to the Research

• The BUA has been described as the most segregated in Europe and segregation is linked to the Troubles. The search process for a dwelling remains relatively under- researched. This chapter examines the ways in which households carry out the search process in a segregated housing market.
  

Research Approach

• Face-to-face interviews with households that purchased owner occupied dwellings in the BUA during the 9 months of 1993 were carried out. A sample of 770 addresses were selected and 571 responses achieved.
  

Main Findings

• Households typically search for around 22 weeks and inspect about 9 dwellings. However, almost one-fifth of households searched for 4 weeks or less and 5% searched for more than one year.
• Catholic buyers searched for significantly longer than non-Catholic buyers. For example, 30% of Catholics searched for less than 3 months compared with 43% of non-Catholics.
• Catholics searched in a smaller range of areas than non-Catholics; three-quarters of Catholics searched in just one area compared with just over half of non-Catholics.
• Catholic households inspect significantly more dwellings than non-Catholic households; 11.7 compared with 6.9.
• Overall, 76% of searchers used estate agents for information regarding properties, 66% used property magazines, 50% 'drove around', 48% followed information from work colleagues and 34% used newspaper advertisements.
• For 8 of the 13 sources of information, Catholics significantly exceeded non-Catholic use, Catholics on average used 4.3 channels compared with 3.4 for non-Catholics.
• Catholic households move over shorter distances than non-Catholics, almost one- third of Catholic households moved less than half a mile from their previous address compared with just 12% of non-Catholics. One-quarter of non-Catholics moved more than 5 miles compared with just 12% of Catholics. Fifty-nine per cent of Catholic households moved from within the same ward or to an adjacent ward compared with just 40% of non-Catholics.

Conclusions

• Household religion has an important independent effect on search behaviour, after controlling for other factors.
• Catholic search behaviour shows strong parallels with black search behaviour in the United States of America.
• Religion is found to be directly associated with the religious composition of the ward of purchase; Catholics gravitate to Catholic areas and non-Catholics to non-Catholic areas.