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Encouraging home ownership is an important aim of housing policy in many countries. It is supposed to have positive effects on individual households and on society as a whole. This article focuses on the effect of home ownership on former tenants of social rented housing in the Netherlands. The central issue is whether becoming a home owner increases one 's sense of freedom and security in the home, one 's sense of control over one 's life, and one 's self-esteem. In other words, to what extent is buying a house a way of empowering individuals and households? Many Dutch housing associations are currently devising sale policies with the aim of empowering their tenants and providing more freedom of choice.

We present the results of telephone surveys of 535 Dutch former tenants who bought their social rented dwelling and 602 others who decided not to buy their dwelling. The main question is …