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Review of Financial Studies Vol. 32 No. 10 2019

Matching in Housing Markets

Sumit Agarwal; Hyun-Soo Choi; Jia He; Tien Foo Sing

Abstract

[This paper investigates the role of ethnic matching between buyers and sellers in Singapore’s public housing market. We find that sellers sell homes in blocks with a high concentration of their own (other) ethnic group (s) at significant premiums (discounts). Chinese sellers earn 1.7% higher premiums when selling homes to Chinese buyers in high Chinese concentrations housing blocks, but Malay sellers accept 1.6% discounts from Malay buyers in the same blocks. We find that the high volume of within-ethnicity transactions with the price discounts is supported by the ethnic social networks, that is, through ethnicity-specialized real estate agents.]

Volume
32
Issue
10
Pages
3958-4004
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib

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