Polish real estate market is relatively young and unpredictable. Moreover, as every market, it is heterogeneous in its every dimension. In author's opinion, one of the most interesting fields of real estate market analysis is house buyers' behavior. The paper discusses some of the marketing research techniques that can be used to analyze consumer preferences. The fundamental aim of the article is to evaluate the utility of cluster analysis in segmenting the housing market based on similarity of preferences (by clustering house buyers to arrive at homogeneous preference segments). Additionally, in the article the author studies correspondence between preferences of potential house buyers and their socio-economical status. Second part of the article discusses the results of the questionnaire research conducted on potential house buyers in Cracow. Both multi correspondence analysis (MCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis will be used to explore consumer preferences on the local housing market.