抄録
This research attempts to examine the issue of housing purchase decisions in urban China based on an online questionnaire survey. Unlike the previous research mainly concentrating on tenure choice, specific selection of a house, etc., this study focuses on the starting stage of a consumption decision, which identifies the demand. The analysis shows that the housing purchase decision is highly related to consumers′ social-economic conditions, with ″fixed income″, ″for children′s education″, ″solid credit″, ″a forthcoming child″, ″getting married″ ranking as the top five important factors.
The study further investigates the specific impact of the explanatory factors on the upgrading of house owning states. With the great change of socio-economic conditions and especially for the highly educated group in Chengdu, traditional Chinese family values such as living with immediate family have a significantly different impact on the decision-making process for 1st and 2nd time homebuyers. This study provides some new observations for the specific target of the high education cohort which has gained more and more attention recently in the knowledge economy, such as that they prefer independence when buying their 1st house while seeking family gathering for their 2nd house. This helps deepen the authors′ understanding of the homeownership status and will have a practical significance for policymakers and practitioners.
