"Home sweet home". How staying more at home impacted residential satisfaction and residential attachment during the COVID-19 pandemic in Sydney, Australia

Previous studies of residential satisfaction and residential attachment have primarily focused on the influence of objective residential characteristics, and paid little attention to the time spent at home and in the neighbourhood. This study uses the COVID-19 lockdown in Greater Sydney, Australia, as an opportunity to investigate the effect of staying more at home on the interplay between residential satisfaction and residential attachment. In doing so, this paper contributes to the discussion about long-term impacts of COVID-19 on residential location choices. A structural equation model was estimated using data from an online survey of employed respondents (N = 748) which questions changes in the frequency of working from home. The results show that respondents who worked almost full time at home (4 plus days working from home) did enjoy higher residential satisfaction, relative to respondents who never worked at home and this leads to respondents having higher residential attachment. Consequently, assuming that working from home becomes more of a norm after the pandemic, it is unlikely that this will be accompanied by large-scale residential relocations. The survey also allows an in-depth analysis of objective and perceived neighbourhood characteristics and the way in which these influence the interplay between residential satisfaction and residential attachment. The results suggest that residential satisfaction is significantly influenced by perceptions of safety and accessibility. The paper concludes with policy implications of how to encourage residential attachment which brings with it benefits of greater commitment to, and willingness to work to improve the neighbourhood.