Abstract: In the era of platform economy, the pricing behavior of platforms has attracted much attention. Leasing platforms are playing an important role in promoting the high-quality development of housing rental markets and promoting the construction of housing system with both house renting and house purchasing. This paper conducts an empirical study by making use of the housing rental transaction data of Wuhan market from the Beike House Hunting Platform. The findings show that there are differential pricing behaviors on the housing rental platforms. The pricing of Beike House Hunting Platform for online customers is about 3.2% lower than that of offline customers, and its pricingfor the customers of homologous platforms is about 2.3% lower than that for the competitive platform users. The result of the heterogeneity analysis shows that, in terms of gender, the platform adopts similar discounts for male and female online customers. For male customers, the competition effect between platforms is not significant. For female users, the platform prices are lower for users of homologous platform. In terms of age, compared with non-post-90s online users, the platform offers more preferential treatment to post-90s online users. For post-90s users, the competition effect between platforms is not significant. For non-post-90s users, the price of the platform for homologous platform users is lower. This indicates that supporting the construction of online rental platforms, encouraging brokerage brands in the housing rental market to join the platform in the way of franchise, and opposing the platforms using digital technology to make differential pricing for different users are conducive to the healthy and standardized development of rental platforms.

Key words: housing transaction platform, housing rental, differential pricing, Beike House Hunting Platform