IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/quedwp/274553.html

Information, Commitment, and Separation in Illiquid Housing Markets

Author

Listed:
  • Stacey, Derek G.

Abstract

I propose a model of the housing market using a search framework with asymmetric information in which sellers are unable to commit to asking prices announced ex ante. Relaxing the commitment assumption prevents sellers from using price posting as a signalling device to direct buyers’ search. Adverse selection and inefficient entry on the demand side then contribute to housing market illiquidity. Real estate agents that can improve the expected quality of a match can segment the market and alleviate information frictions. Even if one endorses the view that real estate agents provide no technological advantage in the matching process, incentive compatible listing contracts are implementable as long as housing is not already sufficiently liquid. The theoretical implications are qualitatively consistent with the empirical observations of real estate brokerage: platform differentiation, endogenous sorting, and listing contract features that reinforce incentive compatibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Stacey, Derek G., 2012. "Information, Commitment, and Separation in Illiquid Housing Markets," Queen's Economics Department Working Papers 274553, Queen's University - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:quedwp:274553
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.274553
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/274553/files/qed_wp_1289.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.274553?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lester, Benjamin & Visschers, Ludo & Wolthoff, Ronald, 2014. "Competing with Asking Prices," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-37, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    2. Darren K. Hayunga & R. Kelley Pace, 2017. "List Prices in the US Housing Market," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 155-184, August.
    3. Lester, Benjamin & Visschers, Ludo & Wolthoff, Ronald, 2015. "Dynamic Relational Contracts under Complete Information," SIRE Discussion Papers 2015-51, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    4. James Albrecht & Pieter Gautier & Susan Vroman, 2016. "Directed Search in the Housing Market," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 19, pages 218-231, January.
    5. Gautier, Pieter & Siegmann, Arjen & van Vuuren, Aico, 2023. "Real-estate agent commission structure and sales performance," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 163-187.
    6. Lester, Benjamin & Visschers, Ludo & Wolthoff, Ronald, 2017. "Competing with asking prices," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(2), May.
    7. Han, Lu & Strange, William C., 2015. "The Microstructure of Housing Markets," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 813-886, Elsevier.
    8. Benjamin Lester & Guillaume Rocheteau & Pierre‐Olivier Weill, 2015. "Competing for Order Flow in OTC Markets," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(S2), pages 77-126, June.
    9. Derek Stacey, 2012. "Information, Commitment, and Separation in Illiquid Housing Markets," 2012 Meeting Papers 401, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Lester, Benjamin & Visschers, Ludo & Wolthoff, Ronald, 2015. "Dynamic Relational Contracts under Complete Information," 2007 Annual Meeting, July 29-August 1, 2007, Portland, Oregon TN 2015-51, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • R31 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Housing Supply and Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:quedwp:274553. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/qedquca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.