Exploring house purchase intention considering typhoon and earthquake disaster experiences in Taoyuan, Taiwan: An extended theory of planned behaviour approach

Taoyuan is one of the cities in Taiwan known to be prone to natural hazards, such as typhoons and earthquakes. This research aimed to explore the intention of people in Taoyuan to purchase a house by utilizing an extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) approach. A total of 212 residents of Taoyuan, Taiwan, voluntarily participated in this research by filling an online questionnaire which was shared through a purposive sampling approach. The questionnaire filled out by the participants consists of 30 indicators classified into 6 latent variables such as experience of earthquake, experience of the typhoon, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention. PLS-SEM showed that experience of typhoon (ET) and experience of earthquake (EE) had significant effects on attitude (A). In addition, experience of earthquake and experience of typhoon had also significant effects on subjective norms (SN) and perceived behavioral control (PBC) which led to the intention (I). Interestingly, the effect of past typhoon experience on house purchase intention was found to be higher than the effect of past earthquake experience on house purchase intention. This research could be used to help the government or relevant agencies to formulate disaster management policies and better housing construction plans.