The effects of floor plan representations on preferences for apartments

In the real-estate industry, floor plans are commonly used to communicate spatial layouts of housing alternatives to house hunters. Using the method of stated preferences, this research investigates whether lay-individuals' preferences for layout attributes differ when floor plans versus text descriptions are used to measure preferences for build-to-rent apartments. The study involved 417 student respondents evaluating four hypothetical apartments twice, with the apartments varying in two focal attributes, layout orientation, and dining space status. Findings from the experiment indicate that floor plan representations of apartments are rated higher overall than text representations; however they also suggest that the effects of the two focal attributes on apartment preferences are larger for text than floor plan formats. Further, effects of the attributes on apartment preference ratings are shown to depend on the participants' user goal and on their level of attribute knowledge. The main contribution of this research is that it demonstrates how representation format influences housing preferences, and further, how lay-individuals' judgements of layout attributes depend on the individual's goals and their knowledge of the attributes. These findings are relevant for future stated preference studies and for real estate agents and property developers when considering what information to provide to prospective buyers and renters of sight-unseen residential property.