Rosane Hungria-Gunnelin, Fredrik Kopsch and Carl Johan Enegren
The role of list price is often discussed in a narrative describing sellers’ preferences or sellers’ price expectations. This paper aims to investigate a set of list price…
Abstract
Purpose
The role of list price is often discussed in a narrative describing sellers’ preferences or sellers’ price expectations. This paper aims to investigate a set of list price strategies that real estate brokers have available to influence the outcome of the sale, which may be many times self-serving.
Design/methodology/approach
By analyzing real estate brokers’ arguments on the choice of the list price level, a couple of hypotheses are formulated with regard to different expected outcomes that depend on the list price. This study empirically tests two hypotheses for the underlying incentives in the choice of list price from the real estate broker’s perspective: lower list price compared to market value leads to the higher sales price, lower list price compared to market value leads to a quicker sale. To investigate the two hypotheses, this paper adopts different methodological frameworks: H1 is tested by running a classical hedonic model, while H2 is tested through a duration model. This study further tests the hypotheses by splitting the full sample into two different price segments: above and below the median list price.
Findings
The results show that H1 is rejected for the full sample and for the two sub-samples. That is, contrary to the common narrative among brokers that underpricing leads to a higher sales price, underpricing lower sales price. H2, however, receives support for the full sample and for the two sub-samples. The latter result points to that brokers may be tempted to recommend a list price significantly below the expected selling price to minimize their effort while showing a high turnover of apartments.
Originality/value
Although there are a large number of previous studies analyzing list price strategies in the housing market, this paper is one of the few empirical studies that address the effect of list price choice level on auction outcomes of non-distressed housing sales.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to empirically test the effect of list price and bidding strategies in ascending auctions of residential real estate.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to empirically test the effect of list price and bidding strategies in ascending auctions of residential real estate.
Design/methodology/approach
Three regression models are estimated, using a unique data set from 629 condominium apartments in the inner-city of Stockholm, Sweden, sold between January 2010 and December 2011.
Findings
The results show that jump bidding has the predicted effect of reducing competition by scaring off bidders. However, a higher average bid increment leads to a higher selling price. Furthermore, results show that a fast auction in terms of average time between bids acts to increase the probability of so-called auction fever as both the number of bidders and the selling price are positively correlated with the speed of the auction. While the average behavior of all auction participants, in terms of jump bidding and time between bids, significantly affects auction outcomes, differences in strategies applied by winners and losers show mixed results. The results of this study with respect to sellers’ list price strategy show that underpricing is an ineffective strategy in terms of enticing more bidders to participate in the auction. Furthermore, underpricing is not sufficient to have a positive effect on the selling price.
Originality/value
This paper is one of the first papers to empirically analyze how different bidding strategies affect the outcome of residential real estate auctions in terms of competition and the final selling price.
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Keywords
Åke Gunnelin, Rosane Hungria-Gunnelin, Maria Hullgren and Bo Söderberg
Rent control may lead to inefficient use of subsidized apartments. This paper aims to empirically investigate if this phenomenon exists under the Swedish rent control regime.
Abstract
Purpose
Rent control may lead to inefficient use of subsidized apartments. This paper aims to empirically investigate if this phenomenon exists under the Swedish rent control regime.
Design/methodology/approach
The quantitative part of the study uses data from Statistics Sweden to calculate, for all municipalities in Sweden, the fraction of residential rental units where no one is living permanently. The qualitative part augments the quantitative results with a survey where representatives for 14 municipal and four private property companies in small, mid-sized and large municipalities were interviewed.
Findings
This paper finds that a surprisingly large fraction of the rental housing stock, about 9.4% on a national level, is underused in the way that rent is paid but no one is living permanently in the apartment according to the official Swedish population register. The underutilization rate is negatively correlated to the median rent in a municipality.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited to Swedish data. This paper does not explore the potential effects of regional economic and demographic conditions on the measure of underutilization.
Practical implications
A policy implication of the present results is that underutilization of the Swedish rental housing stock can be reduced by limiting the supply of rent-controlled housing to households that are in economic or social need.
Originality/value
Numerous papers have analysed various aspects of rent control. However, few papers have empirically analysed how a general rent control system where all tenants, irrespective of economic or social need, have access to rent controlled apartments may contribute to housing inefficiencies. This research contributes to the empirical literature on rent control by analysing the relationship between non-targeted housing subsidies and underutilization of housing units.
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Agnieszka Zalejska Jonsson and Rosane Hungria Gunnelin
The purpose of this paper is to present defects reported by cooperative owners, and to determine the relationship between building characteristics, developer’s/contractor’s…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present defects reported by cooperative owners, and to determine the relationship between building characteristics, developer’s/contractor’s company size and defect type.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis is based on defects reported by board members of cooperatives in Sweden through a survey questionnaire. The 1,563 questionnaires were posted by regular mail to the boards of cooperatives for buildings. The current research presents results from analysis of responses from 394 regular residential projects constructed between 2006 and 2013. The responses represent owners’ experience from a total 1,107 buildings.
Findings
Findings presented in this study indicate that building quality might be one of the factors contributing to the energy gap. The analysis indicates that the most severe problems reported by cooperatives are issues related to building envelope, particularly shortcomings in the function of windows, issues related to the function of the balcony and cracks in the facade and leakage caused by rain water. The results show that the building quality differs depending on developers’ size, measured by number of employees. The authors have also found a significant relationship between reported defects and location expressed by size of the city/municipality.
Originality/value
The discussion on newly constructed residential buildings has been dominated by the perspective of professionals (inspectors) and contractors (or developers) rather than of the owners/users themselves. This study presents findings from the owners’ perspective, thus contributing the owners’ viewpoint to the debate on building quality.
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Samuel Azasu, Rosane Hungria‐Gunnelin and Kristina Edström
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the use of assessment to manage some of the challenges diversity brings into the teaching and learning in international real estate…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the use of assessment to manage some of the challenges diversity brings into the teaching and learning in international real estate degree programs.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a multi‐year case study of a course in real estate valuation in a Swedish University. The impact of assessment on student experience and performance was analyzed.
Findings
Changes in the timing and rules of assessment have an appreciable impact on differences in student performance. However, some diversity problems must be addressed also at the program level.
Practical implications
Real estate departments must exercise pedagogical leadership if they are to continue to effectively provide globally relevant education.
Originality/value
This paper analyses one of the consequences of the expansion of international real estate education into a non‐traditional destination for foreign students.