When the house finds you: unanticipated opportunities in the housing “search”

ABSTRACT Prior research on residential selection generally assumes households find housing by actively searching for it. This assumption has led scholars to focus on factors that enable or constrain such searches. Drawing on in-depth interviews with a race- and class-diverse sample of 141 households in two metropolitan areas, we find that for many movers, residential attainment does not result from a housing search at all. Instead, households move into housing opportunities they come across in their daily lives and interactions, which we call “opportunity finds.” In this alternative model of residential attainment, households encounter housing options that they then evaluate for acceptability, rather than finding housing through a proactive search for options in line with their preferences. Opportunity finds may arise incidentally, for individuals looking to move, or spontaneously, for individuals not planning a move at all. We describe how households come across housing opportunities and examine the prevalence of opportunity finds across race/ethnicity and income. Because housing opportunities are curated by socially structured social networks, activity spaces, and housing gatekeepers, they may reinforce inequality in residential outcomes.