Medcave Journal of Business Management

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Review Article

An Exploratory Conjoint Analysis of Millennial Tradeoff Preferences in Increasing Sustainable Materials Use in US Homebuilding

Shukla PK

There is a high interest in the United States in the exploration of increasing sustainable materials use in US residential homebuilding. One of the fastest growing segments of home buyers in the US are millennials [1]. There are no precise dates for when this cohort starts or ends; demographers and researchers typically use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years). This paper examines the tradeoff preferences of millennial home buyers between six factors in single family residential homes: Price, Average Commute Time to Work, Number of Bedrooms, and Number of Bathrooms, Lot Size, and “Green” house features. “Green” house features include items such as solar panels and reduced carbon footprint. Conjoint analysis is an established marketing research technique to measure tradeoff preferences of consumers and is ideal for this type of research study of real estate factor tradeoff preferences. A data collection instrument was developed that was administered to 107 business students. The respondents are within the millennial age range and were asked to identify self stated ranking of importance of the six factors and then were asked to rate 18 profiles of various house designs on the six factors from 1st to 18th. An analysis was conducted on the tradeoff preferences of higher price for a home from lower costs with the use of less sustainable materials and higher costs for a home with increased use of sustainable materials in homebuilding. There is an examination of differences in tradeoff preferences based on gender and by class level. The paper’s preliminary results have implications for home builders and the follow up paper on secondary data analysis planned will offer more insights on tradeoff preferences at the attribute level for each factor.

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