Fairytale-estate homes, real estate hopes: A framework informing housing decisions in Egypt

Abstract

Housing decisions are often constrained by practicality, while dream home aspirations remain unrestrained. This gap widens significantly in the housing industry, where boundaries blur, advertising fairytale-like estates while providing homes closer to reality than dreams. This study researches, proposes, and tests a framework to assist in making informed housing decisions between dreams and reality. Through a set of 24 themes and a three-step funnel, this paper carefully weighs the themes and their overlapping spatial, architectural, aesthetic, and contextual variables against a spectrum. Positioned as mediating the psychology of decision-making and the dynamics of housing in the market, the paper controls demographic variability by selecting a single context. In this study, 183 Egyptian participants act as a microcosm of the global phenomenon. The framework is proven to be statistically significant, and the findings are multidimensional, revealing nuanced differences of complex residential aesthetic preferences. At the boundary between modernized fairy-tale home aspirations and limited housing practicality, this framework holds the key to making dream homes come true by informing existing and future housing decisions.