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Heterogeneous Real Estate Agents and the Housing Cycle

Author

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  • Sonia Gilbukh
  • Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham

Abstract

The real estate market is highly intermediated, with 90 percent of buyers and sellers hiring an agent to help them transact a house. However, low barriers to entry and fixed commission rates result in a market where inexperienced intermediaries have a large market share, especially following house price booms. Using rich micro-level data on 10.4 million listings, we first show that houses listed for sale by inexperienced real estate agents have a lower probability of selling, and this effect is strongest during the housing bust. We then study the aggregate implications of the distribution of agents' experience on housing market liquidity by building a dynamic entry and exit model of real estate agents with aggregate shocks. Several policies that raise the barriers to entry for agents are considered: 1) lower commission rates, 2) increased entry costs, and 3) more informed clients. Relative to the baseline, all three policies lead to an increase in average liquidity, with the largest effect during the bust.

Suggested Citation

  • Sonia Gilbukh & Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, 2020. "Heterogeneous Real Estate Agents and the Housing Cycle," Working Papers 2020-002, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:hka:wpaper:2020-002
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    3. Guoying Deng & Xuyuan Zhang, 2024. "Platform-Mediated Consolidation and Offline Store Expansion: Evidence from Real Estate Brokerages in Major Chinese Cities," Papers 2409.04326, arXiv.org.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    intermediaries; housing prices; real-estate cycles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R21 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Housing Demand
    • D40 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - General
    • R32 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Other Spatial Production and Pricing Analysis

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