Abstract: This paper uses the data of China household finance survey in 2011, 2013 and 2015 to study the current situation of residents' choice of rent and purchase. Based on the existing researches at home and abroad, we select the corresponding independent variables, determine the research framework and research hypothesis, and establish a binary logistic model to study the influence of housing price-to-income ratio on residents' choice of rent and purchase. The model sets the variables of housing price-to-income ratio, demographic characteristics and regional control variables. The results show that the higher the ratio of housing price-to-income, the lower the probability that residents choose to buy a house. In addition, the ratio of housing price-to-income has a greater impact in central China than in eastern and western China, and a greater impact in northeast and central China than in the rest of China. From the perspective of family micro-data, gender has no obvious influence on the choice of rent and purchase, while age, marital status, family population, housing accumulation fund, social security, education background and family assets all have significant influence on the choice of rent and purchase of residents.

Key words: housing price-to-income ratio, choice of rent and purchase, logistic model