Who Is “Misleading” Whom in Real Estate Transactions?
研究发现，房地产经纪人主要将机构客户的房产卖得更便宜更快，而非所有客户；信息不对称和动机差异共同解释了这一现象，对理解中介行为和市场效率有参考价值。
Abstract The observation that real estate agents sell their clients' homes cheaper and faster than their own homes has been well identified in the literature and interpreted as evidence of an agency problem originated from information asymmetry. This article studies whether this well‐known result holds true for all types of agents and clients, and whether information asymmetry is the full story. By using the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) data from Indiana, we find that, after controlling for observables, mainly homes owned by institutional clients are sold cheaper and faster than agent‐owned homes, and the differences are mainly driven by less and moderately experienced agents. Besides information asymmetry, we also find evidence of motivation heterogeneity—institutions themselves are very motivated to sell, and therefore are willing to sell cheaper in order to sell faster.