Real Estate Agents and Geographical Information

Real estate agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, were surveyed to ascertain the nature and degree of any geographical bias in their evaluations of urban neighborhoods. Three hypotheses were confirmed: first, that realty companies cover limited portions of the housing market; second, that overall evaluations by realtors correspond to the vacancy pattern; and third, that individual real estate agents have highly localized views of which areas are appropriate for certain types of home buyers. These empirical findings have implications for the viewpoint that the metropolitan area acts as the information frame or 'whole' in which intra-urban migration can be analyzed.