Business Commons^™

Do Houses Have Brands?, Melanie Eva Bruce

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2016

Brands have been shown to create identity, and theories of branding are used to explain purchase decisions. The importance of consumers’ creation of identity through consumption has important implications for housing. While traditionally reflected as a rational economic decision, the real estate purchase decision has been shown to incorporate much more (Marsh & Gibb, 2011). Research, by Beer et al. (2007), showed that housing is increasingly being used both as a location for, and object of, higher level consumption.

Self-congruity theory proposes that consumers attempt to preserve or enhance their self-image by selecting brands with ‘images’ they believe are congruent …