The author constructs a theoretical model to examine the effects of an inherent conflict of interest between a seller of a house and the real estate broker hired by the seller. The model is then used to calibrate the broker’s commission rates that would maximize the seller’s expected gain....

Globally, real estate trade is highly regularized. Usually, the market value is not negotiated simply between the seller and potential buyer but based on an assessment performed by a professional valuer, known as a surveyor or appraiser. This paper inquires about the economic role of valuers in...

How far do China’s property prices need to drop in order to send the country into a recession? What does this question tell us about the way Bubble Economies work? In this paper, we develop a theory of Bubble Economics - non-linear and often "systemic" (in the mathematical sense of the word)...

This paper studies the geography of competition on Moscow commercial real estate market. We estimate the elasticity of office rental price to the prices of competing objects as a function of the geographical distance. We found that office real estate market in Moscow, although saturated, is...

The most frequent mortgage loans in the US behave according to nominal interest rates with level loan payments (NRMs), like Fixed Rate Mortgages (FRMs) or Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs). We use a model to show that the tilt effect, an increase of real payments in the early years of the...

The persistence of the standard six percent real estate sales commission across markets and over time calls into question the competitiveness of the residential real estate brokerage industry. While there is anecdotal evidence that some local real estate markets are fairly concentrated, no...

This paper investigates the relationship between real estate asset liquidity and the liability structure of Japanese Real Estate Investment Trusts (J-REITs). It employs data on the regionality and usage of real estate assets as new proxies for the liquidation value of these assets, and arrives...

We examine the market structure for real estate brokerage services across six large metropolitan areas, to see whether low-income neighborhoods or neighborhoods where house prices are low are as well served by real estate professionals as higher income or higher price neighborhoods. We collect...