Comparative Analysis of the Property Negotiation Outcome Between Professional Estate Agents and Non-Professional in Akure

Abstract

The paper compares the already established characteristics of the property market negotiator between professional property negotiators (agents/mangers) and non-professional property negotiators to property transactions in order to assess significant difference in their negotiation outcome (final price) from their Principals viewpoints. The target populations in the study were the land and real property owners in the three selected low, medium and high residential densities of Akure city, Nigeria. Their sample size were proportionately selected from their varying sampling frame and stratified random sampling adopted led to identification of distinct types of the residential properties in each densities. Structured close-ended questionnaire was administered on these owners to elicit their perception on the characteristics of their property negotiators at the point of purchase of land or letting of the residences and the negation outcomes. Data analysis was both descriptive and inferential statistics of mean scores with Kruskal Wallis Test and independent sample t-test respectively. Findings showed little significant differences in the ranking for both professional and non-professional negotiators characteristics among the respondents and there were slight differences in the land/property values negotiated by both negotiators. However there was sparse information about the estimation of the initial value/price among these negotiators as most asking/initial value has been found to be dictated or influenced by initial property owners/vendors.  Despite the intrinsic nature of real property, the expectation is that the fundamental theory of price determination should be displayed in every transaction. The paper recommends that all market participants must be at the same pace of knowledge about previous and prevailing market prices/values to promote mutual and balanced negotiation outcome; otherwise there must be public regulation of market prices/values to increase suboptimal and reduce hyper-optimal outcomes.

Keywords: Asking/Initial Price, Negotiation Outcome, Negotiators’ Characteristics, Professionals and Non-Professionals, Residential Property Market,

DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-2-03