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A Home is More than a House – Does the Tone in Listing Texts Matter to Homebuyers?

Author

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  • Ramya Aroul
  • Riëtte Carstens
  • Julia Freybote

Abstract

Homebuying represents a complex process that involves financial and emotional decision-making. We focus on the emotional aspect of homebuying by investigating the emotive tone in MLS listing texts. Using single-family home transactions from Dallas County, Texas over the period of 2002–2020, we first employ two different approaches, Vader and a location-specific dictionary, to extract emotive tone measures from MLS listing texts. These approaches account for the characteristics of informal texts such as abbreviations, spelling mistakes, and emotive terms. We then use these tone measures to estimate sales price. Using 368,680 transactions and 2SLS estimation, we find a significantly positive relationship between emotive tone in MLS listings, irrespective of the measure used, and sales price. Our results hold across different tone measures, market cycle phases, and price segments. Furthermore, additional tests such as an experiment, repeat sales analysis and the inclusion of property condition and features variables extracted from listing texts provide evidence for the robustness of our results.

Suggested Citation

  • Ramya Aroul & Riëtte Carstens & Julia Freybote, 2026. "A Home is More than a House – Does the Tone in Listing Texts Matter to Homebuyers?," Journal of Real Estate Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 279-304, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rjerxx:v:48:y:2026:i:2:p:279-304
    DOI: 10.1080/08965803.2025.2518816
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