The Impact of Corporate Ownership on Residential Transaction Prices

A perception exists in the appraisal and brokerage industry that houses sold by corporate relocation firms (or corporate employers) sell at a discount in the residential market. The purpose of this article is to empirically determine if corporately owned houses do sell at a discount. A sample of 278 residential transactions in one community is used in a hedonic pricing model to test the hypothesis. The results indicate that corporate properties sold at a discount of nearly 5%.