Heterogeneity of sellers in housing market: Difference in pricing strategies

Abstract

The present study analyzes Perm, Russia residential housing market supply focusing on sellers’ heterogeneity. Many indicators of heterogeneity were considered in the previous research, and all of them were proved to have a great impact on housing prices and time on the market. However, the gap exists in evaluating sellers’ pricing strategies in dynamics mostly because of unavailable data. Current study clears out the effect of time on price using data on asking price dynamics. We employ semiparametric sample selection estimation procedure which accounts for the unobserved property characteristics and non-random selection of objects out of the sample. We consider two main types of sellers: real estate agents and property owners, and show that real estate agents appear to be more impatient compared to property owners. Specifically, they set a lower asking price initially and are more likely to revise it over time if the object is not sold.