Graduation Year

2021

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Economics

Reader 1

Nicholas Kacher

Reader 2

Roberto Pedace

Reader 3

Nayana Bose

Abstract

This paper explores the real estate industry in the current digital age, analyzing the effects of the internet and accessibility of information on housing market efficiency and liquidity.

The mid-2000’s introduced a new industry business model of real estate marketplaces, where information that was once exclusive to agents and brokers were now made available to the public free of cost. Companies such as Zillow, RedFin, and Realtor.com aimed to transform the homebuying process by creating information-based channels that profited off of consolidating relevant real estate data and information. This study specifically analyzes the dominant real estate marketplace, Zillow, and aims to explore the relationship between potential Zillow usage and housing efficiency and liquidity by comparing states with different levels of historical internet access. The findings of this statistical analysis found significant results over time under both the housing liquidity hypothesis, as well as the housing efficiency hypothesis. The findings indicated that potential Zillow usage, measured by accessibility to the internet, supported the housing liquidity hypothesis by demonstrating a decrease in the listing duration of a property. The contextualized results indicate that states with higher internet access decreased the listing duration of a property by more than half a day per year. Although the results were statistically significant, the values did not provide sufficient evidence to support the housing efficiency hypothesis, showing minimal increase in the efficiency gap by 0.002, decreasing overall housing efficiency. The statistically significant figure is not large enough to determine a relationship between potential Zillow usage and housing efficiency.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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