Mid Sweden University

For many years, it has been policy in Sweden to help elderly people remain in their current homes for as long as possible. Earlier research has been performed in the USA (Gibler and Clements III, 2011) and in China (Jia and Heath, 2016), but these questions remain understudied in Sweden. Kulander (2018) showed a model of the demand for adapted houses that was designed and tested on data gathered in Gävle in 2012. The method uses a binary choice model with stated preference data. In this article, we would like to test this model on a more general basis to see whether the result is the same no matter if the respondents live in an urban or rural area. An argument is that urban areas have a higher population density and thus higher taxes, higher demands on property and greater spread in the demography. This could be set in relation to the more rural areas characterized by low population density where the younger generation move to urban areas where the jobs are, which in turn creates supply of properties higher than the demand. In order to capture the pattern of the life cycle in housing, data for this paper has been gathered in Stockholm, Vallentuna, Uppsala, Sundsvall, Vansbro, Sollefteå, Torsby, Ragunda and Överkalix during 2015. From 7000 questionnaires that has been sent responses from about 40 % persons was received. Data indicate a difference between rural and urban areas as expected.