Housing and consumption: existing tensions and future directions in understanding housing search and selection

Max Besbris

Chapter 20 in Research Handbook on the Sociology of Consumption, 2026, pp 240-249 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Housing is essential to everyday life, grounding routines and embedding individuals in particular relationships, social networks, and institutions, and there are questions about housing and consumption that remain fertile territory for sociologists. A growing body of research is concerned with how consumers form choice sets of neighborhoods and housing units during the housing search, particularly as housing search has moved online. This chapter describes ongoing research into the online housing information environment and analyzes how the information environment itself may affect the search and selection process in ways that reproduce racialized search patterns and reify neighborhood reputations.

Keywords: Housing; Online search tools; Information environments; Segregation; Residential mobility; Consumer behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035310500
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