【正文】
er. Several studies (Janssen 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 willingness by buyers to pay more for brokerlisted houses than those sold directly by owners. Alternatively, petition from forsalebyowner properties may prevent sellers from passing on mission costs to buyers in the form of higher prices. Therefore, at issue is whether brokerassisted sales result in higher 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 market as well as the effectiveness of brokers as market intermediaries. Specifically, this study examines the effects of a real estate broker by hypothesizing a twostage process. In the first step a buyer decides whether to engage the services of a broker to assist with the search. Empirically, this decision is modeled as a probity equation where the choice to use a broker is a function of such variables as the cause of the move (. changes in the household, or 2 workrelated moves), the ine, age, experience, and market knowledge of the buyer, and other buyer characteristics. The second step is the purchase. Here selling prices are modeled as a function of house characteristics, buyer characteristics, and whether the sale was brokerassisted. This approach should provide information about the determinants of housing prices. In particular, this model should allow us to determine whether the brokerassisted buyers and buyers forsalebyowner properties constitute segmented markets which would permit the maintenance of housing price differentials. This study uses crosssection data from a nationwide survey of recent homebuyers and sellers conducted by the Research Division of the National Association of Realtors. This database includes both brokerassisted 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 that 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 consummated. These buyers have higher ines, are more likely to be from out of town, are more likely to have employer assistance in the purchaseall 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 broker is accounted for, these buyers do not wind up paying more for their homes, and there is some evidence that they actually pay less than a parable buyer who buys without an agent’s assistance. The layout of this study is as follows. The relevant literature is reviewed in section section 3 the data, variable selection, and model are described. Section 4 presents the empirical results,