Premium
Customer satisfaction with apartment housing offered by Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
Author(s) -
James III Russell
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
international journal of consumer studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.775
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1470-6431
pISSN - 1470-6423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1470-6431.2009.00800.x
Subject(s) - real estate investment trust , apartment , renting , business , real estate , investment (military) , descriptive statistics , ordered logit , marketing , actuarial science , finance , politics , statistics , civil engineering , mathematics , political science , law , engineering , machine learning , computer science
The explosive growth of Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) is changing the ownership structure of rental housing in the US and across the world. This paper reports the impact of REIT ownership on renter satisfaction by analysing nearly one‐half million ratings posted on the largest US consumer comment website for apartments. Descriptive statistics and ordered logit analyses (both with and without zip code fixed effects) indicated that REITs following an aggressive branding strategy had positive effects on residential satisfaction, while non‐branding REITs had negative effects. This dichotomous outcome is consistent with an asymmetric‐information model of consumer choice in apartment rentals.