1、1 中文 3000 字 本科毕业设计（论文） 外 文 翻 译 原文： Buying a House and the Decision to Use a Real Estate Broker Introduction What is it that residential real estate brokers do and why would a home buyer engage their services? As is often the case,answering this question is not a simple task. Home buyers who acquire
2、their house through a broker do not purchase just a house-they also obtain the services of the broker. In other words, these buyers are consuming a bundled good. One dimension of this good is lower search time, and thus lower search costs, associated with buying through a broker. Recent research (Ba
3、ryla and Zumpano, 1995) suggests that choosing a broker improves the marginal efficiency of search, making it more likely that a buyer will find a satisfactory match earlier in the search process. Buying through a broker also increases the supply of houses available to buyers, and provides buyers wi
4、th information on the quality of different houses and the neighborhoods in which they are located. Brokers frequently help buyers identify sources of mortgage financing and property insurance, as well as assist buyers in recording the title. All of these services suggest that brokers provide value a
5、dded to buyers (in addition to providing a service to sellers), something that these buyers would be willing to pay for.Thus, this bundle of services and the house that is purchased would, intuitively, be priced higher than homes purchased without the assistance of a broker. Several studies (Janssen
6、 and Jobson, 1980； Jud and Frew, 1986) observe that buyers pay more for homes listed with brokers. It is not possible, however, to determine whether this applies to the entire residential housing market, since research to this point has relied on local data. Higher prices indicate a willingness by b
7、uyers to pay more for broker-listed houses than those sold directly by owners. Alternatively, competition from for-sale-by-owner properties may prevent sellers from passing on commission costs to buyers in the form of higher prices.Therefore, at issue is whether 2 broker-assisted sales result in hig
8、her prices. If search duration is affected by broker assistance, what about price? This study attempts to answer these questions by developing an empirically testable model of broker choice.In the process, this study should provide important insights into the efficiency of the residential housing ma
9、rket as well as the effectiveness of brokers as market intermediaries. Specifically, this study examines the effects of a real estate broker by hypothesizing a two-stage process. In the first step, a buyer decides whether to engage the services of a broker to assist with the search. Empirically, thi
10、s decision is modeled as a probit equation,where the choice to use a broker is a function of such variables as the cause of the move (i.e., changes in the household, or work-related moves), the income, age, experience, and market knowledge of the buyer, and other buyer characteristics. The second st
11、ep is the purchase. Here selling prices are modeled as a function of house characteristics, buyer characteristics, and whether the sale was broker-assisted. This approach should provide information about the determinants of housing prices. In particular， this model should allow us to determine wheth
12、er the broker-assisted buyers and buyers for-sale-by-owner properties constitute segmented markets which would permit the maintenance of housing price differentials. This study uses cross-section data from a nationwide survey of recent home buyers and sellers conducted by the Research Division of th
13、e National Association of Realtors. This database includes both broker-assisted sales and sales by owners, allowing an assessment of the impact of the real estate broker on selling price, and by implication, the value of the marketing services which brokers provide to sellers. Our results indicate t
14、hat indeed buyers who use brokers do pay more for their homes than those who do not buy through a broker. But our results also imply that it is not because these buyers have used a broker. Rather, this group of buyers would have paid a higher price regardless of the means by which the purchase was c
15、onsummated. These buyers have higher incomes, are more likely to be from out of town, are more likely to have employer assistance in the purchase-all factors that lead them to pay more for a house, but also to make them more likely to use a broker in purchasing their home. When the decision to use a
16、 broker is accounted for, these buyers do not wind up paying more for their homes, and there is some evidence that they actually 3 pay less than a comparable buyer who buys without an agents assistance. The layout of this study is as follows. The relevant literature is reviewed in section 2.In secti
17、on 3, the data, variable selection, and model are described. section 4 presents the empirical results, and the last section contains the conclusions of the study. Literature review A broad range of research has focused on the determinants of housing prices. These include traditional estimates of hou
18、sing demand, hedonic modeling of housing prices, the determinants of the tradeoff between price and time on the market, and models of the search process. Other literature has examined the role of real estate brokers and has focused on the impact of brokers on buyer search, or has examined the welfar
19、e and/or moral-hazard implications of broker intermediation. Few studies have tried to measure the direct effects of real estate brokers on the housing market, and fewer still on home selling prices. The work that has been produced to date has often generated conflicting results. In part, these disp
20、arate results may reflect data availability problems, as virtually all of these earlier studies have been based on local data, and samples tended to be small, making generalizations difficult. In one of the first empirical studies of broker choice, Janssen and Jobson (1980) find that real estate age
21、nts do have an impact on price. Using data from the Canadian housing market, Janssen and Jobsons results indicate that with real estate firms of comparable size, brokers who list comparable properties for higher prices than competing brokers tend to realize significantly higher selling prices. The h
22、igher selling prices tend to be associated with transactions involving executive transfers and broker-arranged secondary financing. These results may, in turn, indicate that brokers obtain higher prices when dealing with buyers who are both less knowledgeable about local market conditions and less s
23、ensitive to price. Yavas and Colwell (1994) suggest that selling price may also be, at least to some degree, a function of the type of broker listing arrangement used by the seller. In a study of the residential market, Jud (1983) estimates the demand for real estate brokerage services. Using housin
24、g transactions data from three urban areas in North Carolina, Jud finds that brokers do not affect the prices of the houses which they sell, although they do appear to influence the level of housing consumed by buyers. In a subsequent study, Jud and Frew (1986), using different data, find that brokers do obtain higher prices for the homes they sell. Evidence is also presented
