Auction Competitive Dynamics and Guide (List) Prices in a Bubble Market

The auction literature finds competition drives price outcomes and has both rational and psychological components. In bubble markets psychological factors are likely to be heightened impacting on the dynamics of competitive behavior (Shiller, 2014). We find, in a real estate bubble, guide prices have no influence in generating greater auction competition. In addition, our findings are supportive of the strength of the guide price in acting as an anchor on price outcomes. Thus we find no evidence that auction fever (e.g. Adam et al, 2015) occludes any assimilative role for the guide as an anchor.Interestingly, however, we find evidence consistent with real estate agents systematically setting low guide prices relative to fundamentals, in an apparent belief in the reversal- of- the- anchoring effect (Ku et al, 2006), suggesting their actions in setting guide prices may have, in fact, paradoxically, dampened the effect of the bubble rather than amplifying it.