This paper analyzes how the competition among real estate brokers impacts housing prices in a typical sellers’ market in China. In a theoretical model, we discover a broker competition mechanism in which brokers compete for listings by promising higher transaction prices and compete for buyers...

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...