Bennie D. Waller

Flaming among first-time group support system users

Abstract Numerous benefits, including increases in efficiency, effectiveness, and participant satisfaction, have been noted in the literature when electronic meetings are used in place of traditional, oral meetings. However, several costs, or process losses, have also been observed, including an increase in ‘flaming’ characterized by insults or even obscenities. This paper describes how flaming may be correlated with numerous task and group member characteristics. Results of a case study show that a large number of flames are unrelated to the topic and that a small minority of those writing comments are responsible for the majority of flames. No variables were found to be significant predictors, but its incidence was exclusively among males.

Listing Contract Length and Time on Market

Miceli (1989) in a search for the optimal time to allow a broker to market property provides a theoretical model which posits that the principal (seller) may use the length of the listing contract to motivate the agent (listing broker) to better align incentives. Expanding slightly on Miceli, this present work predicts that longer time allotted the broker to market residential property will decrease broker effort resulting in lower search intensity and eventually a longer marketing span for property, ceteris paribus. This prediction is borne out across three empirical modeling methodologies commonly used in time on market studies.

On the Likelihood of a Transaction and the Amount of Time Provided the Broker to Sell Property

This work empirically investigates the effect of the amount of time provided the broker to market property (listing contract length) on the likelihood of a successful marketing attempt. Do shorter listing contracts increase broker motivation or can contracts be so short that marketing efforts are unlikely to result in a successful transaction? Empirical results of this study demonstrate that when the broker is provided a longer listing contract, the likelihood of a successful transaction increases - but at a decreasing rate. This result suggests that home sellers face a tradeoff when choosing contract length. Longer contracts provide more time to arrange a successful sale, but reduction in broker motivation reduces the probability of sale as contracts lengthen.

How Many Listings Are Too Many? Agent Inventory Externalities and the Residential Housing Market

Given the significant role of real estate agents in the housing market, this study examines how agents’ incentives regarding the size of their listing inventories indirectly affect residential home prices and liquidity. The theory shows that taking on additional inventory generates a critical principal–agent issue, resulting in the dilution of an agent’s selling effort and, ultimately, creating an externality that adversely impacts housing market outcomes across listings. It remains an empirical question whether diluted sales effort leads to lower prices, longer time on market, or both. The empirical results reveal significant inventory externality effects, as greater agent inventory tends to reduce selling price and substantially reduce liquidity for clients’ properties in this market.

Estimating the Effect of Crime Risk on Property Values and Time on Market: Evidence from Megan's Law in Virginia

We examine neighborhood externalities that arise from the perceived risk associated with the proximity of a registered sex offender’s residence. We find large negative externality effects on a property’s price and liquidity, employing empirical techniques that include a fixed-effects OLS model, a correction for sample selection bias and censoring using a Heckman treatment, and a 3SLS model to account for simultaneity bias in the joint determination of a home’s sale price and liquidity. Additionally, we find amplified effects for homes with more bedrooms (a proxy for children) and if the nearby offender is designated by the state as “violent.�?

The Role of Transaction Costs in Impeding Market Exchange in Real Estate

We examine the role transaction costs play, particularly the costs related to search and bargaining, in impeding or delaying real estate market transactions. In a theoretical model, we show that agents’ incentives are influenced by transaction costs in a way that will increase a home’s marketing duration and decrease the probability a home will sell. Exploiting a decade of transactions from Virginia, we use a variety of empirical modeling techniques to estimate the effect of transaction costs on a property’s time on market (TOM) and its probability of sale. We find that factors associated with high search and bargaining costs increase a home’s TOM and reduce the probability that it will sell.

Seller Over-Pricing and Listing Contract Length: The Effects of Endogenous Listing Contracts on Housing Markets

This paper examines how seller pricing decisions influence listing contract length and how these decisions affect price and liquidity in housing markets. Because list price affects broker effort required to sell the property, brokers respond to seller overpricing by increasing the negotiated listing contract length. At the same time, sellers respond to longer listing contracts by adjusting their list price strategy. Both list price and length of marketing time affect broker sales effort and therefore a property’s realized selling price and liquidity. Analysis of house transaction data from Virginia indicates that greater over-pricing by sellers prompts brokers to pursue longer listing contracts, which subsequently lengthen marketing time but increase selling price. The results reveal a novel transmission mechanism from higher list price (which induces longer contracts) to selling price and liquidity. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Two sides of dual agency: evidence from homebuyers and transactions

This study gains insights to the motivating causes of dual agency transactions in residential real estate by examining two distinct sources of data. The first is evidence from the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) homebuyers’ survey; the second is multiple listing service (MLS) transaction data. The survey evidence is used to examine buyer characteristics and search methods related to the outcome where a homebuyer is unrepresented by a buyer broker, who would exclusively represent their interests. Results suggest that certain factors contribute to both the likelihood that a buyer will be unrepresented and the incidence of dual agency, including homebuyer experience and inexperience, geographic familiarity by brokers and buyers and the channels used in marketing residential products to generate initial contacts with potential buyers. The matching of results from the empirical analysis using the MLS transaction data and the NAR homebuyer survey data adds confirmation to our findings. Even as dual agency creates opportunities for efficiency gain in the real estate transaction, the empirical results have implications for the consequences of homebuyer involvement in the initiation of dual agency, strategic behaviour recommendations for brokers as well as the possibility to policy adjustments.

Are Home Warranties Worth it? A Study in the Richmond Housing Market

Home warranties are often criticized for their lack of worth to a potential home buyer. We argue that both home buyers and home sellers may bene�?t from warranties, though the bene�?ts are very small. If home buyers are risk averse, home warranties provide a valuable form of insurance. Sellers can then extract this bene�?t in the form of either higher prices, increased probability of sale, or faster sales. Using a large data set from the Richmond M.L.S. that spans 2000 - 2015, our preliminary results show that home warranties do indeed bene�?t home sellers by increasing the probability of sale and decreasing time on market, though this latter effect is limited for higher priced homes. Warranties offered on homes priced above

Who Benefits from Targeted Property Tax Relief? Evidence from Virginia Elections

288,588.89 sellers induce longer time on markets and reduced probability of sales. Our results also suggest that agents who sell their own properties are 13-15% more likely to offer warranties, suggesting some principal-agent issues may be present. However the bene�?ts are empirically not present in our results. Surprisingly, warranties tend to reduce the price of a home by