Tag Archives: web survey

Americans want smaller homes but are still looking online at big ones

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There have been several indicators in recent months that Americans are interested in smaller homes. But what if they say they would purchase smaller homes but are still looking at bigger homes? An economist for Trulia.com discusses this:

We asked people to tell us their ideal home size. They’re shunning super-sized homes, the McMansions. Only 6 percent of Americans say their ideal home size is more than 3,200 square feet. Thirty-two percent said they see the ideal home at 1,401 to 2,000 square feet. About 27 percent said 2,001 to 2,600 square feet.

This is partly due to the economic troubles of the recession and recovery. But this could be part of a permanent shift toward smaller homes. And it could reflect baby boomers wanting to downsize and increasing environmental awareness, with some people wanting a smaller environmental footprint.

On the other hand, when we look at the homes that people view on our site — even though only 6 percent of the people in our survey said the McMansion size range was ideal — 27 percent of the property views people are looking at are of that size. So even though people aren’t saying those large homes are their ideal size, they want to see what these homes look like and want to dream big.

This disconnect could be explained in several different ways:

1. Americans look at bigger houses online because it is free. These days, one can look at hundreds of homes and get a good idea what is on the market. Perhaps we would need to ask realtors about what sized homes people actually ask to see.

2. Americans actually do want to buy bigger homes but they know the economic realities and perhaps even the cultural shift and so say they would want a smaller home. As the economist suggests, Americans simply like to dream big. This certainly wouldn’t be the first time that self-reported actions and aspirations don’t match up. If the economy picked up, we could then figure out whether the shift toward smaller homes is real or was a reaction to the economic crisis.

3. Americans want to look at bigger homes because they want the features of the bigger homes in a smaller home.

Time will help us figure out which of these interpretations is most accurate as would more data.

You can read Trulia.com’s press release concerning the survey here and a more  interpretation here. The web survey involved some weighting:

Figures for age, sex, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online. These online surveys are not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodologies, including weighting variables, click here.

“Not based on a probability sample” is usually a problem for surveys, even if proper weights are assigned to results. I would like to see some more thorough survey data on some of these issues.

Americans are coolest nationality according to Badoo.com poll

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A new poll from Badoo.com finds that Americans are the coolest nationality:

Social networking site Badoo.com asked 30,000 people across 15 countries to name the coolest nationality and also found that the Spanish were considered the coolest Europeans, Brazilians the coolest Latin Americans and Belgians the globe’s least cool nationality.

“We hear a lot in the media about anti-Americanism,” says Lloyd Price, Badoo’s Director of Marketing. “But we sometimes forget how many people across the world consider Americans seriously cool.”…

“America,” says Price, “boasts the world’s coolest leader, Obama; the coolest rappers, Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg; and the coolest man in technology, Steve Jobs of Apple, the man who even made geeks cool.”

Brazilians are ranked the second coolest nationality in the Badoo poll and the coolest Latin Americans, ahead of Mexicans and Argentinians. The Spanish, in third place, are the coolest Europeans.

At least one marketer is happy.

Two thoughts:

1. I would be very hesitant about accepting the results of this poll. If this is a web survey of social network site users, it is probably not very representative of people within these countries. Serious news organizations should report on the methodology and discuss the downsides (and advantages) of this approach when reporting this information. But, if it is an accurate take on social network site users, generally younger, plugged-in populations, perhaps this is exactly what American companies would want to hear.

2. America has military, political, and economic power but this hints at another, less-recognized dimension: cultural power and influence. For better or worse, American values, celebrities, products, and ideas have spread throughout the world. Even if our economic and political power goes into a relative decline, this cultural influence will live on for some time. (A bonus: a Badoo poll from earlier this summer also said Americans are the funniest nationality!)

3. Is being “cool” really something to aspire to as a nation? In an America dominated by celebrity, media, and consumption, it may be hard to know that this is not the primary objective.

(Some background on Badoo.com.)

Social inequalities in accessing open government data

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Some governments are providing more open data. But, this may not be enough as citizens don’t necessarily have equal access to the data or abilities to interpret the information:

At least 16 nations have major open data initiatives; in many more, pressure is building for them to follow suit. The US has posted nearly 400,000 data sets at Data.gov, and organizations like the Sunlight Foundation and MAPlight.org are finding compelling ways to use public data—like linking political contributions to political actions. It’s the kind of thing that seems to prove Louis Brandeis’ famous comment: “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” But transparency alone is not a panacea, and it may even have a few nasty side effects. Take the case of the Bhoomi Project, an ambitious effort by the southern Indian state of Karnataka to digitize some 20 million land titles, making them more accessible. It was supposed to be a shining example of e-governance: open data that would benefit everyone and bring new efficiencies to the world’s largest democracy. Instead, the portal proved a boon to corporations and the wealthy, who hired lawyers and predatory land agents to challenge titles, hunt for errors in documentation, exploit gaps in records, identify targets for bribery, and snap up property. An initiative that was intended to level the playing field for small landholders ended up penalizing them; bribery costs and processing time actually increased.

A level playing field doesn’t mean much if you don’t know the rules or have the right sporting equipment. Uploading a million documents to the Internet doesn’t help people who don’t know how to sift through them. Michael Gurstein, a community informatics expert in Vancouver, British Columbia, has dubbed this problem the data divide. Indeed, a recent study on the use of open government data in Great Britain points out that most of the people using the information are already data sophisticates. The less sophisticated often don’t even know it’s there.

This touches on two issues of social inequality that are not discussed as much as they might be. First, not everyone has consistent access to the internet. It may be a necessity for the younger generations but for example, there are still problems in doing web surveys because internet users are not a representative cross-sample of the US population. Making the data available on the internet would make it available to more users but not necessarily all users. This ties in with some earlier thoughts I’ve had about whether internet access will become a de facto or defined human right in the future.

Second, not everyone knows where the open data is or how to go through it. Government information dumps require sorting through and some time to figure out what is going on. There may or may not be a guide through the information. As someone who has worked with some large sociological datasets, it always takes some time to become acclimated with the files and data before one can begin an analysis. This should legitimately become part of a college education: some training in how to sort through information and common databases. If we get to a point where the average informed citizen needs to be able to sort through government information online, wouldn’t this be a basic skill that all need to be taught? As the commentator suggests, the trained and sophisticated can take advantage of this data while the average citizen may be left behind.

The idea of having more open government information should cause us to think about how the internet might help close the gap between people (though I don’t hold any utopian expectations about this) rather than sustain or exacerbate social inequalities.

Racism the reason for the lack of black soccer managers

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Two English academics examined an issue that is reminiscent of similar issues in the United States: what explains the relatively low proportion of black soccer managers in England?

More than half the respondents to an online poll of 1,000 soccer fans including current and former players believe racism is the reason for the lack of black managers in English soccer…

“The number of black and minority ethnic managers in English professional soccer has been stable for nearly 10 years,” Cashmore and Cleland wrote.

“There are usually between two and four (out of a possible 92). Yet black players regularly make up more than a quarter of professional club squad.

“The findings indicate 56 percent of respondents believe racism operates at the executive levels of football, i.e. the boardroom.

“While some accuse club owners of directors of deliberate discrimination, most suspect a form of unwitting or institutional racism in which assumptions about black people’s capacities are not analysed and challenged and continue to circulate.”

Soccer has tried to combat racism throughout the game for years – see the ever-present slogan “Say No to Racism” in the new FIFA commercials playing during the Women’s World Cup and my FIFA 2010 video game. But negative stories pop up from games time to time and I imagine that this study doesn’t please those in charge. Even if racism is not present at matches, the perception is that it is still in the sport.

I was intrigued to see that these conclusions are drawn from a web survey. Here is some of the methodology for the study:

This method did not suffer from the kind of sampling error that can bias more traditional sampling: participation was completely voluntary and confidential. It was self-selecting. The only possible bias would be a skew toward those with access to the internet. We believed this was an acceptable bias in the circumstances. To elicit the necessary data, both authors engaged in club fans’ forums across the United Kingdom (from the Premier League down to non-league). A large number of forum editors were formally contacted by email and in those forums where permission was granted (over fifty), a paragraph about the research and a link directing fans to complete the survey was included. As the research was anonymous, at the end of the survey the participants were reminded that by clicking submit they were consenting for their views to be used in the research.

This study doesn’t have the “kind of sample error that can bias more traditional sampling”? Self-selection is an issue with web surveys. This may not matter as much here if the authors were most interested in obtaining the opinion of ardent fans. But it might even be more powerful if the average citizen held these opinions.

Conclusions about PC vs. Mac users based on an unscientific web survey

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Based on the headline, this looks like an interesting story: “Mac vs. PC: The stereotypes may be true.” But there is a problem:

An unscientific survey by Hunch, a site that makes recommendations based on detailed user preferences, found that Mac users tend to be younger, more liberal, more fashion-conscious and more likely to live in cities than people who prefer PCs.

While the first part of this paragraph is treated as a clause that barely affects the rest of the text, it really is the key to the story. Hunch’s survey respondents identify as 52% PC users and 25% Mac users with 23% percent identifying with neither (and what do we do this category?). This compares to PC vs. Mac world market share of 89% to 11%. This is evidence that the online sample doesn’t quite match up with what computer users are actually buying. Voluntary web surveys are difficult to work with for this reason: even if there are a lot of respondents, we don’t know whether these respondents are representative of larger populations.

Perhaps CNN does cover themselves. The headline does suggest that these stereotypes “may” be correct and the second paragraph suggests the stereotypes may contain “some truth.” But a more cynical take regarding both CNN and Hunch is that they simply want more web visits from devoted PC or Mac defenders. Perhaps the fact that all of this is based on an unscientific survey is less important than driving visitors to one’s site and asking people to comment at the bottom of both stories.

The evolving American Dream: more dense but still private

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I’ve written about several aspects of the American Dream including unhappiness and how the American Dream might now be about perfection rather than acquiring goods or status. One key aspect of this Dream is housing, often viewed as a single-family house in a suburb. A new report from the National Association of Realtors suggests homebuyers now have some new preferences:

The 2011 Community Preference Survey reveals that, ideally, most Americans would like to live in walkable communities where shops, restaurants, and local businesses are within an easy stroll from their homes and their jobs are a short commute away; as long as those communities can also provide privacy from neighbors and detached, single-family homes. If this ideal is not possible, most prioritize shorter commutes and single-family homes above other considerations.

1. The economy has had a substantial impact on attitudes toward housing and communities…

2. Overall, Americans’ ideal communities have a mix of houses, places to walk, and amenities within an easy walk or close drive…

3. Desire for privacy is a top consideration in deciding where to live…

4. But, having a reasonable commute can temper desire for more space…

5. Community characteristics are more important than size of home…

6. Improving existing communities preferred over building new roads and developments…

7. Major differences in community preferences of various types of Americans…

All of these points are from the executive summary which also has some key percentages for each point.

The results of this survey seem similar to a recent report (see here) earlier this year from the National Association of Home Builders that suggested Generation Y wants more urban settings and more social (and smaller?) homes. In the long run, it remains to be seen whether these changes are broad cultural changes, generational changes (driven by younger generations), or opinions changed primarily by recent economic conditions.

Richard Florida sums up the report this way:

We’ve come to a crossroads that neither dyed-in-the-wool sprawl advocates nor crunchy urbanists dreamed of two decades ago, in which the choice isn’t between urban and suburban but between neighborhood and subdivision. A great neighborhood is a great neighborhood whether it’s in the city or the suburbs. It’s not an either/or, between crowded apartments or Cape Cods on cul de sacs, it’s more of a blend. Developers and planners take note: there is a potentially enormous market in cities for narrow single-family houses on small lots, like you see in places like Santa Monica and Venice. And as I wrote in The Wall Street Journal not too long ago, there are countless ways that our suburbs can be densified and reinvigorated. The American Dream hasn’t died–it just looks a lot different than it did in the 1950s. It looks a lot different than it did a decade ago.

So this report may not really be a repudiation of the suburbs but rather a new vision for suburbia: private yet dense (with still a clear 80% preference for single-family homes) and with neighborhood amenities. I am a little surprised that there aren’t more specific questions about preferred housing size or housing costs. Additionally, the survey seems set up to ask a lot of questions about smart growth with little explanation why this was the main focus.

(A side note: the study was a web survey:

The 2011 BRS/NAR Community Preference Survey is a web-enabled survey of adults nationwide using the Knowledge Networks panel. Knowledge Networks uses probability methods to recruit its panel, allowing results to be generalized to the population of adults in the U.S. A total of 2,071 questionnaires were completed from February 15 to 24, 2011. The data have been weighted by gender, age, race, region, metropolitan status, and Internet access. The margin of sampling error for the sample of 2,071 is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points at the 95% level of confidence. A detailed methodology can be found in Appendix A.

Knowledge Networks (KN) is a firm that gets around some of the common problems of web surveys (typically having to do with having a representative sample) by having representative panels who take web surveys. In order to get a representative sample, KN employs this technique:  “Since almost three in ten U.S. households do not have home Internet access, we supply these households a free netbook computer and Internet service.”)