Why Did HomeAdvisor Conduct The Home Happiness Survey?

Because happiness matters - so much so that even Gallup, Harvard and the United Nations have devoted resources to understanding and increasing it. And because at HomeAdvisor, we make it our mission to make homeowners happy where it matters most - at home.

Our homes are where we most sincerely foster our relationships with our loved ones, our interests and ourselves - those relationships that the experts say contribute most to overall human happiness. So, at the most basic level, we 've set out to understand as much as possible about how we can create the kind of happy home conditions that make for happier people and, ultimately, a happier nation and world.

WHAT Was Included in the Survey?

The Home Happiness Survey included 87 questions: eight key indicator questions designed to gauge homeowner happiness and 79 supporting questions aimed to uncover the principal factors affecting homeowner happiness.

WHERE Was the Survey Conducted?

HomeAdvisor sent the survey to more than 1 million homeowners via email. The 17,629 participating respondents completed the Homeowner Happiness survey online, through Trifecta Research Group.

Love a good, in-depth, dot-the-I's-n-cross-the-T's methodology story? Read on!

Trifecta Research Group surveyed a sample of 600 homeowners from a consumer panel sample and profiled their distribution based on age, gender, income and geography. Then, HomeAdvisor and Trifecta Research Group surveyed a sample of 4,775 HomeAdvisor members and profiled their distribution based on age, gender, income and geography. Next, Trifecta Research Group compared these profiles to understand similarities and differences as they relate to demographic, descriptive and behavioral variables — also comparing the response patterns of the two sample sources based on questions related to Happy Home Score calculations. The group subsequently concluded that, despite some differences in the two sample sources, participant responses to the survey questions regarding dwelling, community and accessibility were sufficiently aligned to proceed with a survey of the HomeAdvisor member database in addition to the panel sample.

Trifecta Research Group compared the combined HomeAdvisor and panel samples to a nationally representative profile of U.S. homeowners. This was done by comparing profiles of the combined samples to the best available sources of homeownership profiles and identifying any significant differences in the number of responses to the survey by generation, gender, age and region. The combined sample was weighted to reflect the proportions of homeowners in the United States as follows: generational cohort distributions were applied at the state level using U.S. Census data, designated marketing area (DMA) generational cohort distributions reflect the state's distribution, and national homeownership rates were applied across both DMAs and states. The results are the Happy Home Score for four generational cohorts, four regions, 39 states and 36 cities. A regional grade was assigned for the remaining 11 states (Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, West Virginia, Maine, Vermont, South Dakota, Nebraska and North Dakota) because they did not present a sample size large enough to report on.

All city data reported from the Homeowner Happiness Index survey is on a DMA level. City census data is reported at the MSA level for home prices and MSA level for city population with the exception of the following cities: Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C. These exceptions have population data specific to the metro division that the city belongs to.