A model of a rental housing market is presented in which landlords economize on the maintenance of housing quality to profit from tenants imperfect information. In a partial equilibrium model that describes tenants by their distribution of minimum acceptable (reservation) quality for units...

An equilibrium model of search in a spatially differentiated rental housing market is formulated that predicts both rent dispersion and equilibrium vacancies. The equilibrium rent distribution is determined on the landlord's (rental supply) side given tenants' search strategies. Then tenants'...

We formulate a model that explains vacancy durations arising from lags in matches between the suppliers and demanders of housing units. We emphasize rental housing markets in this exposition although the model could be extended to competitive or noncompetitive rental or home-ownership markets....

We determine the mechanism that a rational, profit-maximizing seller would use to revise his reservation price for a heterogeneous or infrequently exchanged good. For instance, while one dimension of a home's quality may be easily determined in competitive markets (e.g., the valuation of floor...