Ethnicity in housing markets: Buyers, sellers and agents

Abstract

This paper examines how ethnicity related to cultural differences arising from ethnic background affects housing market transactions in the Atlanta metro area. Using both the US Census and Wikipedia approaches to infer ethnicity from individuals' names, we find that the interplay of buyer, seller, and agent ethnicity composition affects interaction in the housing market. Sellers working with listing agents in the same ethnic group set higher listing prices and enjoy higher selling prices and quicker sales. Agents working with same ethnicity buyers yield higher prices and liquidity. Even though sellers only communicate with buyers through their agents, houses sold by sellers to buyers of same ethnicity have higher prices and sell faster. And while the ethnic mix of agents and their clients matter, the ethnic mix of agents in the transaction does not.

Urban flight: A short‐term phenomenon or long‐term trend?

“…Two new independent variables, Competition and listing density , are introduced following Bikmetova et al. (2023), BTZ henceforth) so that Equations () and () are econometrically identifiable. They define the competition from surrounding listings on the market during the listing period of the subject property i by $$$$\begin{equation}Competitio{n}_i = \sum\nolimits_j {{{(1 - {D}_{i,j})}}^2\left\{ {\min \left[ {{s}_i,{s}_j} \right] - \max \left[ {{l}_i,{l}_j} \right]} \right\}} ,\end{equation}$$$$where s i and s j denote sale dates, and l i and l j denote listing dates of house i and j , and D i,j measures the straight‐line distance between house i and j .…”

Restricted access: Real estate agent response to client race, ethnicity, gender, and side of market

“…33 Lee et al (2023) document that real estate agents report a strong correlation between their own race/ethnicity and the race/ethnicity of their most recent clients, and that this correlation exists regardless of the agent's race/ethnicity for agents identifying as either White, Black, Latinx, or Asian. Bikmetova et al (2023) show that agents working with buyers or sellers of the same race/ethnicity experience quicker transactions and improved price outcomes. 34 We also examined alternatives to Equation (2) that examine nonlinearities in the relationship between response and population characteristics.…”

“…Bikmetova et al. (2023) show that agents working with buyers or sellers of the same race/ethnicity experience quicker transactions and improved price outcomes.…”