Focus
Also, I think we need to figure out what issues we want to focus on. There's the idea of affordable housing (though that could go under poverty inequality), 'desirability' in where people want to live, etc. Are we looking for people's opinions on how they think affordable housing should be provided (too normative?) or just simple, real estate issues. I think once we figure that out, we can focus our questions in that direction.
I think we should stick to simple real estate questions honestly, that way it is easier-since there are only 5 questions in the survey, and it also keeps it focused and not going in different directions. or we could ask questions regarding income, then preference to live (we need more than just east and west)and go from there to show some kind of continuity..what doo you think?
Hey guys bit late on the discussion, just trying to figure out what exactly we're trying to focus on. When you mean "simple real estate issues", I think we need to target a specific issue and build from that. Maybe we can divulge into what people "actually" know about their local real-estate? So for example, if we're looking at Vancouver residents, maybe we can ask them whether or not they know what the average amount of pricing for the area they are living in is, and then build from that? (i.e. Do you think it's fair compared to 'x' place), etc.
-Dylan
From there perhaps questions regarding the area of the home and of the land would be appropriate. With real estate, a multitude of factors affect pricing. It is entirely possible for a smaller piece of land to be worth more than a larger one.
Rabi
Rabi: So would we want to set up questions to find pop. density vs. housing value; number of schools vs. housing value; east/west location vs. housing value etc?
Yeah I think we need to define what it is that we are looking for.
I believe that one or two questions asking about *certain variable* vs housing value would be the most we should have as a survey question because we only have 5 questions to put on the survey and I'm sure we'll have other things we want to ask. That being said, I liked Brian's direction with the questions, but we might want to try to aggregate all of them into one question?
I think if we were to conduct a survey we have to know who are the population that we are interested in targeting. Than we have to know how we are going to conduct this survey via : telephone, social services, or in person. Therefore, if we are wanting to conduct a survey on Real Estate for the GVRD than I suggest we start with a small sample since that could be more accurate: city/municipality vs. housing value in that particular city/municipality. Do you guys agree ?
Possible questions to consider would be:
1) Are the rates of mortgage approval in GVRD affordable?
2) Did you have an agent assisting when buying your property?
3) Has the crisis in Japan affected your real estate decisions in any way?
It was a typo Rabi thanks for bringing that issue to my attention.
I've been thinking, maybe we're getting a bit to ahead of ourselves here. We should probably first establish whether or not the respondent owns property or is renting, then from there we can pursue further questions depending on the answers.I believe there were called filter questions?
Perhaps:
Do you own your place of residence? ->No -> Would you plan on owning property in the GVRD?-> Then ask about current prices
Do you own your place of residence? ->Yes-> Do you currently have a mortgage?
Dren what do you mean by the GTA? Are you referring to the Greater Toronto Area?
@ Brian: It does seem a bit too complicated now in hindsight for a survey of this size to account for property sizes. Unless anyone else can put it in a different way?
I do think it is going to be a bit too complicated. Why not keep it simple and look at residents who own/rent? Or something along those lines. Mortgage payments are one of the larger debts Canadians are burdened with. I think it would be interesting and narrow enough to propose a set of questions about how people feel about buying/selling in Vancouver, how many own/rent out, the range of their mortgage payments monthly perhaps. How many have paid it off? Since technically they don't "own" it unless it is paid off in full. Thoughts?
I agree with you Lida. At the end of the day what may really matter is what people's mortgage are worth and if people in Vancouver can afford to buy a house or not. I feel that we have to come up with a theory/hypothesis of some kind that we are trying to prove. What is it that we expect to see in our survey? I think we have to decide what patterns we are looking for and from there on develop the questions. Perhaps a focus could be trying through our survey to explain the reasons for over priced housing market, that may help us narrow our questions. I'm not sure this model applies to surveys as well but it could work.
I think look for a why in only 5 questions is a little hard. We could always try to find out IF people in vancouver can afford their current houses-like what was said with asking income, mortgage amount etc. By looking for why housing prices are so high requires a lot more questioning and research than we can find out in 5 Q's. when is this due?
I think this was a good point, maybe assess people's attitudes and knowledge about the area and prices, rather than looking for hard information.
So we can all agree to start with the easier questions such as "Can you afford a house in the current Vancouver housing market?" More questions on attitudes towards the market than other areas with a flood of background data. Because I do think that this way is better for a short survey like this where we actually have to call people and have them answer it. The simplier it is, the easier the process should be.
I liked the questions that Rabi started on, anyone have any other question they would like to ask?
Ya that sounds good... It's kind of what I was getting at, at the bottom of the page. And as we were talked about during the lab, about survey planning, you don't want to have questions where you require the responder to need to know a lot of hard facts about whatever it is you're asking them.
okay so where are we join with this? we've had tons of discussion but let maybe try to finalize a few questions before the weekend!
I agree. How about we each come up with five and then narrow it down to our favorite five?!
five each that is
Sounds good. 5 each though? That would be 60 answers for us to sort through and debate... maybe two or three would be more manageable? Quality, not quantity :)
We are probably going to end up with a lot of the same questions...worded differently but more or else the same. But ya that would save us some time you're right..2 or 3 questions sounds good to me