IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/643x2.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Digitalization of the Housing Search: Homeseekers, Gatekeepers, and Market Legibility

Author

Listed:
  • Boeing, Geoff

    (Northeastern University)

  • Harten, Julia
  • Sanchez-Moyano, Rocio

Abstract

In recent years, digitalization has reshaped the housing search. Today, online platforms facilitate housing market information exchange and expand the legibility of the housing market for sellers, buyers, landlords, and renters. Such platforms can democratize information access and diversify homeseekers’ information supplies. This in turn can expand choice sets, increase search radii, reduce search costs, and sideline traditional gatekeepers to help homeseekers realize a more efficient housing search with a superior outcome. However, certain market participants benefit more than others, and the promise of digitalization is muted by its drawbacks. This paper explores how these online platforms shape the housing search by influencing information supplies, presentation, and consumption. Tensions arise as old gatekeepers develop new strategies to maintain power in the digital realm and new gatekeepers emerge to capitalize on digital trends. Policymakers can play an important role in maintaining and developing the societal benefits of housing market digitalization while better mitigating its harms.

Suggested Citation

  • Boeing, Geoff & Harten, Julia & Sanchez-Moyano, Rocio, 2023. "Digitalization of the Housing Search: Homeseekers, Gatekeepers, and Market Legibility," SocArXiv 643x2, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:643x2
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/643x2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/649e0559a2a2f40f31436618/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/643x2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Larry DeBoer, 1985. "Resident Age and Housing Search: Evidence From Hedonic Residuals," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 22(5), pages 445-451, October.
    2. Boeing, Geoff & Wegmann, Jake & Jiao, Junfeng, 2020. "Rental Housing Spot Markets: How Online Information Exchanges Can Supplement Transacted-Rents Data," SocArXiv phgqt, Center for Open Science.
    3. Geoff Boeing & Max Besbris & Ariela Schachter & John Kuk, 2021. "Housing Search in the Age of Big Data: Smarter Cities or the Same Old Blind Spots?," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 112-126, January.
    4. Zahra Nasreen & Kristian. J. Ruming, 2021. "Informality, the marginalised and regulatory inadequacies: a case study of tenants’ experiences of shared room housing in Sydney, Australia," International Journal of Housing Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 220-246, May.
    5. Geoff Boeing, 2020. "Online rental housing market representation and the digital reproduction of urban inequality," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(2), pages 449-468, March.
    6. Julia Gabriele Harten, 2021. "Housing Single Women," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 87(1), pages 85-100, January.
    7. Karen Black & Kalima Rose & Sarah Treuhaft, 2011. "When investors buy up the neighborhood: preventing investor ownership from causing neighborhood decline," Community Investments, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, vol. 23(Spr), pages 19-22.
    8. Emily E. Wiemers, 2014. "The Effect of Unemployment on Household Composition and Doubling Up," Working Papers 2014_05, University of Massachusetts Boston, Economics Department.
    9. Peri, Giovanni, 2002. "Young workers, learning, and agglomerations," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(3), pages 582-607, November.
    10. Maalsen, Sophia & Wolifson, Peta & Rogers, Dallas & Nelson, Jacqueline & Buckle, Caitlin, 2021. "Understanding discrimination effects in private rental housing," SocArXiv jdycg, Center for Open Science.
    11. Emily Wiemers, 2014. "The Effect of Unemployment on Household Composition and Doubling Up," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(6), pages 2155-2178, December.
    12. Margery A. Turner & Stephen Ross & George C. Galster & John Yinger, 2002. "Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets: National Results from Phase 1 of the Housing Discrimination Study (HDS)," Working papers 2002-16, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Julia Gabriele Harten & Geoff Boeing, 2024. "Access to the exclusive city: Home sharing as an affordable housing strategy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(16), pages 3069-3085, December.
    2. Guarin, Angela & Costanzo, Molly, 2020. "Noncustodial fathers’ financial contributions to children in three-generation households," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    3. Lusi Liao & Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat, 2022. "Alternative boomerang kids, intergenerational co-residence, and maternal labor supply," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 609-634, June.
    4. Geoff Boeing, 2020. "Online rental housing market representation and the digital reproduction of urban inequality," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(2), pages 449-468, March.
    5. George C Galster, 2024. "How digitalisation influences neighbourhood change," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(16), pages 3028-3049, December.
    6. Albanesi, Stefania & Gihleb, Rania & Zhang, Ning, 2022. "Boomerang College Kids: Unemployment, Job Mismatch and Coresidence," IZA Discussion Papers 15507, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Guarin, Angela, 2021. "Three-generation households in the U.S.: The first exit after a child’s birth," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    8. Adriana M. Reyes, 2022. "Race and Ethnic Differences in Financial Dependency of Coresident Young Adults During Economic Recessions and Over Time," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 51-65, March.
    9. Brigid Cakouros & Sarah Reynolds, 2022. "Household structure across childhood in four lower- and middle-income countries," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 47(6), pages 143-160.
    10. Karen Glaser & Rachel Stuchbury & Debora Price & Giorgio Gessa & Eloi Ribe & Anthea Tinker, 2018. "Trends in the prevalence of grandparents living with grandchild(ren) in selected European countries and the United States," European Journal of Ageing, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 237-250, September.
    11. Edwards Kathryn Anne, 2020. "Who helps the unemployed? Workers’ receipt of public and private transfers," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 9(1), pages 1-26, March.
    12. Chad Frederick, 2022. "Economic Sustainability and ‘Missing Middle Housing’: Associations between Housing Stock Diversity and Unemployment in Mid-Size U.S. Cities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-17, June.
    13. Adu, Providence & Delmelle, Elizabeth C., 2022. "Spatial Variations in Exclusionary Criteria from Online Rental Advertisements," SocArXiv 8g4sv, Center for Open Science.
    14. Aranda, Luis, 2015. "Doubling up: A gift or a shame? Intergenerational households and parental depression of older Europeans," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 12-22.
    15. Michelle Maroto & Laura Aylsworth, 2017. "Assessing the Relationship Between Gender, Household Structure, and Net Worth in the United States," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(4), pages 556-571, December.
    16. Sarah R. Brauner-Otto & Claudia Geist, 2018. "Uncertainty, Doubts, and Delays: Economic Circumstances and Childbearing Expectations Among Emerging Adults," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 88-102, March.
    17. Gatskova, Kseniia & Kozlov, Vladimir, 2019. "Doubling Up or Moving Out? The Effect of International Labour Migration on Household Size," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 162-179.
    18. Julie Zissimopoulos & Johanna Thunell & Stipica Mudrazija, 2020. "Parental Income and Wealth Loss and Transfers to Their Young Adult Children," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 316-331, June.
    19. Geoff Boeing & Max Besbris & Ariela Schachter & John Kuk, 2021. "Housing Search in the Age of Big Data: Smarter Cities or the Same Old Blind Spots?," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 112-126, January.
    20. Hope Harvey, 2020. "Cumulative Effects of Doubling Up in Childhood on Young Adult Outcomes," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(2), pages 501-528, April.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:643x2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.