Home Buyer Search Duration and the Internet

In this study we examine the impact of internet use on the duration of search in the housing market. We develop a model of partial equilibrium in the housing market which suggests an ambiguous effect on the search duration when internet resources are employed. In this model, the impact of using the internet can be viewed as increasing the search efficiency, or as altering the distribution of potential matches from which the home buyer can choose. We use data from the 2000 Home Buyer and Seller Survey collected by the National Association of Realtors. While theory suggests there might be an increase or a decrease in search times when using on-line resources in the search, in this data using an Instrumental Quantile Regression approach we find a tendency for internet use to increase the duration of home search relative to employing more conventional search methods