Old house diagnosis/renewal decision making model

The decision making model of diagnosis and renewal of old houses is constructed based on the hypothesis that owners try to maximize their lifelong expected utilities. The effect of decay of houses is also taken into account. That results in temporal factors, such as lifetime of owner or history of the house, that will affect owner´s decision on renewal. We specify the conditions for the seismic safety diagnosis to bring about positive benefit to owners. When the results of diagnosis do not affect owners´ decision on renewal, owners do not have an incentive to obtain information by seismic safety diagnosis. Finally, the effectiveness of government´s intervention in owners´ decision through subsidies is discussed