The influence of estate agencies' location and time on Internet: An empirical application for flats in Vienna

It is widely known, that home buyers and tenants increasingly rely on the Internet, when searching for homes; as shown in different studies over the years. This paper analyses the relationship between listing price and time-on-Internet compared to the estate agents’ locations. Many studies analysed the time on market (TOM) in relationship to the selling price and focused on different characteristics e.g. housing attributes, location characteristics and special findings like overpricing effects. In contrast to the established TOM analyses, which analyse the actual duration of commercialization from starting the marketing to the successful sale, this paper focuses on the online marketing time. The methodology follows the setting of the TOM literature and applies: OLS, hazard and 2sls modelling. We use Viennese real estate offers from an Internet platform covering 2010–2011. We find the time on Internet to significantly increase, if the agent is located outside of Vienna. Although the real estate prices of estate agents outside Vienna are significantly lower than from estate agents inside Vienna.