The Impact of e-Information on Residential Real Estate Services: Transaction Costs, Social Embeddedness, and Market Conditions

This paper examines the possibility of disintermediation of residential real estate agents arising from increased customer access to property information on the Internet (e-information). The transaction cost viewpoint suggests that since customers now have ready access to einformation without an agent, customer-perceived value of agents and agent usage will decline. The social embeddedness perspective, by contrast, suggests that these changes are unlikely because the added value of agents goes beyond mere information aggregation and includes essential transaction activities that are embedded in social networks. A survey of buyers and sellers of real estate in Alberta provides partial support for the transaction cost viewpoint. However, buyers and sellers respond differently to market conditions (slow versus hot markets) in their proclivities to use real estate agents. Copyright © 2010 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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