THE TENURE TRANSITION DECISION FOR ELDERLY HOMEOWNERS

There exists evidence of a sizable shift of elderly households away fr om homeownership. The paper explores two sets of potential determinant s of this decision. One set derives from the Life Cycle Hypothesis. A second set is intended to apply to households that do not conform to t he predictions of life cycle theory. The results from estimating a ten ure transition likelihood function provide some support for each set o f explanations. In particular, they suggest that it is premature to di smiss the role of Life Cycle Hypothesis behavior in explaining the dec ision of elderly households to terminate homeownership. (C) 1997 Acade mic Press.