Housing Price Search Bebavior: The Effects of Anchoring, Brokerage Service, and Market Mechanism Choice

• Main Authors: Liao，Chung-Jen, 廖仲仁
• Other Authors: Chang，Chin-Oh
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/29765504791322911841

博士 === 國立政治大學 === 地政研究所 === 94 === This dissertation employs search theory and behavior theory to study four relative essays. The first essay is to test three questions using a unique data base in the viewpoint of search cost and Anchoring behavior: First, is there anchoring effect or reference price bias on home-purchasing behavior? Second, is there any extrapolative expectation effect of reference price change on homebuyers? Third, can homebuyers reduce price premium from their high search cost or perceived bias? Those answers can help us understand if we can get alternative interpretation to housing price dispersion and if government should provide housing information service. Empirically, we find that out-of-town/district buyers pay a statistically significant price premium in the Taipei area. We also find some evidence consistent with the price premium being driven by high search costs, anchoring effect and extrapolative expectation from heuristics. Finally, homebuyers can lower price premium through real estate brokers in the market. The second essay is to examine the efficiency of housing and brokerage markets in view of price dispersion. We find brokerage service enhance the search ability of homebuyers. We use listing price prices as the prices before search and the actual transaction prices as the price after search, and we also separate the sample into search by homebuyers and search by broker. We find that search by broker decreases the price dispersion compared to search by homebuyers. The third essay is try to explain a number of past and recent studies provided conflicting empirical answers to the effect of real estate brokerage service on housing price. We employ quantile regression to capture the behavior at each quantile of conditional house price distribution and to test the asymmetric effects of brokerage service. An important findings of this paper is that the price effects of real estate brokerage service are significant heterogeneous across the conditional price distribution. The contribution of this paper to the prior literature is to provide empirical evidence by showing that broker might have a positive, negative, or zero impact on the housing prices. The final essay is to discuss the decision making behavior of housing markets mechanism choice. Real estate auction market has been one of main market mechanisms of home purchase. Therefore, the performance of real estate auctions is a very important issue. This article reviews the price premium or discount of real estate auctions by correcting the self-selectivity bias in a view of homebuyers’ search cost. The empirical result shows that the availability of an auction as an alternative has the result of high search cost buyers attending auctions. Next, after accounting for the endogenous nature of this choice and controlling for property and buyer characteristics, prices of properties sold at auction were not lower than those of comparable properties sold in a search market. It is questionable to say the performance of real estate auctions is inferior to that of negotiated sales at Taiwan.