Realtors and the Apartment Price Bubble: Korean Case Study

Yeonjae Lee and Seungwoo Shin ()
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Yeonjae Lee: Konkuk University
Seungwoo Shin: Konkuk University

A chapter in New Challenges of the Global Economy for Business Management, 2025, pp 895-909 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Whenever a financial crisis occurs, politicians, journalists, and citizens alike are quick to point fingers at anyone who is to blame. Sometimes, the true culprits can be identified, but many times, a scapegoat is needed. In the case of Korea, realtors or their associations are sometimes blamed for very strong price increases in housing market. The purpose of this study is to establish whether realtors collectively collude to increase housing prices. This study analyses the relationship between the average monthly apartments price and the number of real estate brokerage firms at the national level via Granger causality, an impulse response function and variance decomposition and then uses the number of brokerage firms in 17 provinces to analyse the degree of connectedness. The major findings of this study are as follows. First, an increase in the number of brokerage firms does not Granger cause an increase in housing prices. Furthermore, interprovincial connectedness does not differ between property price boom and bust periods, and the overall degree of connectedness is very weak. As associations of realtors are professional groups committed to fulfilling the social functions of real estate market efficiency and housing market stability, it is advisable to refrain from unfounded accusations and punishments such as unfounded commission reduction policies.

Keywords: Realtor; Apartment price; Market steering; Granger causality; Connectedness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:prbchp:978-981-96-4116-1_57

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-96-4116-1_57

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