"Homes owned by real estate agents sell for about 3.7 percent more than
other houses and stay on the market about 9.5 days longer, even after
controlling for a wide range of housing"
¿Y eso es mucho o poco?
Market Distortions when Agents are Better Informed: The Value of Information
in Real Estate Transactions
Steven D. Levitt, Chad Syverson
NBER Working Paper No. w11053
Issued in January 2005
http://papers.nber.org/papers/W11053
---- Abstract -----
Agents are often better informed than the clients who hire them and may
exploit this informational advantage. Real-estate agents, who know much more
about the housing market than the typical homeowner, are one example.
Because real estate agents receive only a small share of the incremental
profit when a house sells for a higher value, there is an incentive for them
to convince their clients to sell their houses too cheaply and too quickly.
We test these predictions by comparing home sales in which real estate
agents are hired by others to sell a home to instances in which a real
estate agent sells his or her own home. In the former case, the agent has
distorted incentives; in the latter case, the agent wants to pursue the
first-best. Consistent with the theory, we find homes owned by real estate
agents sell for about 3.7 percent more than other houses and stay on the
market about 9.5 days longer, even after controlling for a wide range of
housing characteristics. Situations in which the agent's informational
advantage is larger lead to even greater distortions.
No comments:
Post a Comment