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....

This paper has two goals: (a) To model and inherent conflict of interest between a seller of a house and the real estate broker hired by the seller. In this environment, the pressure brokers exert on sellers to reduce prices generates faster sales and hence reduces sellers' expected profit. (b)...

The current commission system in real estate brokerage misaligns agent and house seller interests, so real estate agents have strong incentives to mislead their clients by convincing them to sell their houses too cheaply and too quickly. This paper studies, being motivated by the commission...

This paper investigates price distortions in dual agent real estate transactions. Consistent with the literature, we find that dual agent has a null effect on sale price. However, dual agent distortions on sale price emerge after controlling for the ownership of the property. We find that dual...

Real estate agents play an important intermediary role in housing markets. We use a merged transaction dataset that identifies houses purchased by registered real estate agents (salespersons) and other buyers in Singapore to empirically test the hypothesis that real estate agents use information...

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...