The Social Construction of a Local Housing Market through Intermediaries

• In Event: 355 - Section on Economic Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 18. Dissertation Proposal Roundtable

Abstract

(Dissertation Proposal) Housing market dynamics such as residential mobility, discrimination, and housing policy have been well studied by sociologists. Less is known about the role of the intermediaries, mainly real estate agents, in the construction of the housing market through the buying process. In this study, I use in-depth interviews with real estate agents and first time homebuyers and ethnographic field research in the homebuying setting to understand the structure and the functioning of a local housing market. More specifically, I study how the interactions between first time homebuyers and real estate agents influence their decision on the neighborhood and the house they end up buying. I focus on how agents try to meet and reformulate the needs and preferences of the buyer, not only through the objective characteristics of the house (bedrooms, size, type, etc.) and the neighborhood, but also through the representation of the buyers and their lifestyles. The goal of this research is to explore the strategies, habits, and discourses that real estate agents adopt in front of potential buyers in terms of trying to sell a house and within the context of increased competition between agents and agencies. One hypothesis is that they use specific social markers (such as values, race, demographics, and lifestyle) to match houses and their sellers to homebuyers.

Author

• Eliza Benites Gambirazio, University of Arizona