Housing purchase intention of the floating population under the home purchase restriction policy in China

Abstract

Housing security is fundamental to the life of rural-urban migrants in cities, and the housing choices of rural-urban migrants have drawn increasing attention in recent studies. However, the role of housing policies is still yet to be explored. This paper aims to investigate the effect of housing policies on rural-urban migrants’ purchasing intention. Taking China as an example, the empirical results indicate that, somewhat surprisingly, the home purchase restriction policy implemented by the Chinese government raises the floating population’s intention to purchase houses in the host city. Yet, such a linkage varies with income and housing status among the floating population, while it gives rise to changes in their consumption behaviors. This study thus provides new insights into the effect of housing policies and how floating populations make housing purchase decisions, yielding critical implications on how to optimize housing policies.