Abstract: This study examines how macro-social and micro-social and economic factors at different life stages affect people's decision on purchasing secondary residential property. It suggests several possible explanations such as cohort opportunity, property market opportunity, elite advantage, family resource investment and rational choice. Using discrete-time event history analysis, this study looks into the data collected from 1000 household questionnaires in Guangzhou in 2010 and finds that factors such as elite advantage and family resource investment become much more significant in purchasing a second property while the impact of cohort opportunity and work unit subsidies diminishes. Housing marketization has changed property wealth accumulation in China from institutional resource distribution to market resource accumulation. It has changed housing purchase from relying on work unit support to depending on personal and family financial capability. The early stage of housing marketization was able to offer property ownership opportunities to different social stratums. However,the deepening marketization and wealth redistribution have worsened the housing inequality among different social groups as well as within the young cohort. Any future housing reform should make an effort to prevent further housing polarization between the rich and the poor.

Key words: market transition, purchase timing, life course, second set of housing, cohort opportunity