A proper family house is for many a self-owned house with a private garden in a purely residential area. We analyse the relevance of having grown up in a parental home with a garden and in close proximity to green spaces for moving into a detached or terraced house for one or two families, whether rented or bought, which we call a "family house." Simultaneously, we analyse whether the same predictors trigger becoming a homeowner, accounting for parental social class in both equations of bivariate probit models. On the basis of West German Socio-Economic Panel data (1984-2016), the housing trajectories of respondents from age 16 are followed for up to 32 years (N = 8,005 persons). We find that having lived in a parental home with a garden increases the likelihood of moving into a family house but not the likelihood of first-time homeownership. Likewise, parental homeownership increases exclusively the likelihood of adult children's first-time homeownership. Parental home characteristics are found to be more important for adult children's housing type choice and tenure than social background. The results suggest that moves into a family house are triggered by intergenerational transmission of housing type preferences, whereas the transmission of homeownership is a parallel but distinguishable process. Additional findings about the importance of having lived close to public green spaces for both, housing choice and tenure, call for further research.
