Franchising has been present in the residential real estate brokerage market for many years. Today, nearly one of every five firms in this sector is organized as a franchise and one of every three agents works for an affiliated organization. Despite this high incidence of franchising, no current...

Evidence from the corporate finance literature indicates that diversified firms trade at a discount to otherwise comparable specialized firms. However, very little research has addressed whether a similar diversification discount might exist in equity REITs that diversify across property types...