The Impact of Trust on the Willingness of Co-Tenancy Behavior: Evidence from China

INTRODUCTION: Nowadays, more and more people choose to rent houses in first-tier cities together with other people, which can alleviate certain economic pressure. Therefore co-tenancy has become an important field of academic research in recent years and a number of previous studies have discussed the phenomenon. However, fewer studies explore the influence of different variables on the willingness of co-tenancy behavior through quantitative methods. METHODS: This study conceptualizes and implements concepts such as trust, positive emotion, relationship strength, satisfaction, income, duration of co-tenancy required and the willingness of co-tenancy behavior(WOCB). We designed and collected a questionnaire and finally a questionnaire survey of users (n=525) was conducted, and a basic description and comparison of research objects’ willingness of co-tenancy behavior were made in terms of trust, and positive emotion, relationship strength and monthly income also affect the willingness of co-tenancy behavior. RESULTS: The trust effects have a positive impact on the WOCB, Trust effect will affect Relationship Strength and Positive Emotion, and will further affect the WOCB. However, this influence is negative when people are in high Monthly Income and negative when people are in low Monthly Income. DISCUSSION: Trust, relationship strength and positive emotion are key factors for people to rent houses with others. That is to say, the intensity of people’s willingness to rent houses with others depends on the degree of trust in others, the relationship strength and positive emotion. When the post-90s drifters in Shenzhen do not believe others, they will tend to live alone rather than the new model of co-tenancy. We also suspect that a person with negative emotion far greater than positive emotion prefers to live alone, rather than living in the same place with his roommates. It provided certain group implications for their willingness of co-tenancy behavior.