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Digital technologies have made it possible for organizations to enhance service delivery and provide consumers a way to experience a product or service before even seeing it in person. Prior work has validated consumer purchase decision-making models like the Engel, Kollat and Blackwell (EKB) model in digital and multi-channel purchase environments. This research aims to explore the various impacts of digital technologies, specifically virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) features, on the different stages of the EKB model in a high involvement purchase decision context. In addition, the use of such technologies is examined as a competitive advantage for sales agents.

An in-depth market analysis of VR and AR technologies related to residential real estate is conducted. Then the research questions are analyzed through detailed feedback gathered from 33 prospective home-buyers and realtors in the USA.

Insights from buyers and sales agents (realtors in the context of this research) suggest that VR and AR technologies can enhance consumer information search and expedite the time consumers spend evaluating purchase alternatives. As these technologies advance in their customization features, they may also increase the conversion between alternative evaluation and purchase, but only if they are realistic and provide high quality experiences. Finally, digital technologies are viewed as becoming a necessity in high involvement sales contexts, suggesting that additional features or innovative ways to use these technologies may serve as sources of competitive advantage for sales agents.

This is one of the first research studies to explore the perceived impacts of VR and AR technologies on the stages of the EKB model consumer decision model. It builds on prior work and offers direction for future research.

Professionals’ market knowledge and business experience can facilitate transactions of residential property potentially impacted by stigmatised installations, such as large-scale public infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to explore perceptions and assessments among homeowners, valuers (appraisers) and real estate agents (realtors) regarding infrastructure in general and high voltage overhead transmission lines (HVOTLs) in particular.

Informed by a literature review, separate surveys in Queensland, Australia, analyse via non-parametric and parametric means informational and perceptual variables concerning HVOTLs among 600 homeowners, 90 valuers and 90 real estate agents.

The findings reveal statistically significant differences in risk and valuation perceptions of homeowners, valuers and real estate agents relating to the placement of major linear forms of infrastructure.

This study adds to a now-solid body of literature pertaining to property effects of HVOTLs. It extends the analysis among classes of real estate professionals and provides new comparisons for further analysis and commentary.

The results speak to property professionals, land use planning and electricity authorities. Prior research can be triangulated with that obtained here from valuers and real estate agents who act as informants, gatekeepers and confidants in the market place. Various hypotheses address specific points of professional practice.

This study shows that property professionals’ disposition to HVOTLs and other large-scale infrastructure is likely to be a good deal more measured than that of homeowners, so that valuers and real estate agents might exercise a mediating influence in placement and installations decisions.

This research raises understanding of differences in market knowledge and perception of essential infrastructure among clients and property agents. As a point of difference, it concentrates on examining empirically what texts refer to as “information asymmetry” in residential real estate markets.

Sustainable features are gradually becoming important considerations by commercial real estate users. This is because of their considered impact in reducing operating costs and potential at reducing the negative impacts of buildings on human health and the natural environment. This chapter sought to examine the demands for sustainable features by users of commercial real estate like offices in Lagos State, Nigeria. It also evaluated the factors influencing demand for them to achieve value for money and enhance real estate investment decisions. The quantitative research methodology was adopted, and primary data were collected via questionnaires distributed to 134 purposively selected estate surveying firms in the study area. Ninety-five representing (70.9%) were returned and found useable and were analysed with the aid of descriptive statistics of percentages, mean and relative willingness index. The study found that power/energy-saving features are in high demand as alternatives to the epileptic nature of power supply in the country. The study recommended the need for the government to encourage the adoption and incorporation of locally made sustainable features in commercial real estate and to subsidise them for use in the Lagos commercial real estate market. Thus, it is concluded that with the right environment created by policy makers, sustainable features in buildings have huge potentials to contribute to prevent environmental problems in an emerging commercial real estate market like Nigeria.

Many writers assume that consumers’ use of the Internet will follow the development of Web sites by Realtor.com and other Realtor‐sponsored sites on the Internet. This study examined this proposition by surveying consumers’ Internet use in their home purchases. A model of consumers’ Internet use in home purchases is developed and tested. Results showed that fewer than 40 percent of the home purchasers ever used the Internet for real estate related information during their home purchases. Awareness of Internet real estate information, access to Internet, age, perceived effectiveness of Internet in home purchase, and satisfaction with Realtor are found to be important factors in determining consumers’ use of Internet during home purchases.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are reshaping many industries, often by reshaping how information is shared. However, while the effects and uses of ICT are often associated with organizations (and industries), their use occurs at the individual level. To explore the relationships between individual uses of ICT and changes to organization and industry structures, we examined the residential real estate industry. As agents, buyers and sellers increase their uses of ICT, they also change how they approach their daily work. The increasing uses of ICT are simultaneously altering industry structures by subverting some of the realtors’ control over information while also reinforcing the existing contract‐based structures. This structurational perspective and our findings help to explain why information intermediaries persist when technology‐based perspectives would suggest their disappearance.

This paper aims to investigate and compare both real estate agents and their service consumers' perception on ethics of real estate agents in Nigeria; an emerging economy with less organized and transparent property market.

The study adopts a survey approach to research. Using Bartlett et al.'s model of determining sample size, a total of 125 firms were randomly selected from the list of registered real estate consultancy firms in Lagos metropolis. For each firm contacted (through business addresses), three service consumers were randomly selected from their archives of consumers. Questionnaires were personally administered and retrieved with useful response rates of 70 per cent and 75 per cent for real estate agents and service consumers respectively. Data emanating from the survey were analysed using frequency distribution and ANOVA analyses.

Among other findings, the results indicate that both real estate agents' and consumers' ratings of ethics of real estate agents is average on a five‐point Likert scale. Furthermore, real estate agents' self perception of the five year trend in their ethics was positive, albeit with a strong belief that commercial consideration should take precedence over an ethical stance in a real estate transaction.

In spite of the uniformly high self‐perception of agent ethics, most practitioners in real estate agency consultancy believe that commercial or economic considerations are more important than an ethical stance in a real estate transaction. This raises a serious fundamental issue about the essence and practical understanding of ethics by practitioners and what ethics entails in the discharge of their professional duty.

The paper complements the existing body of literature on real estate ethics by providing an empirical assessment of real estate agents in an emerging economy.

The case learning objectives and discussion questions relate very closely to several theories related to branding, including brand positioning, brand growth, brand management, customer value proposition, brand matrix and brand identity.

The information provided in this case was gathered by the author through personal interviews and email exchanges with Jordan Boyes, managing broker and owner of Boyes Group Realty Inc. Secondary research was also conducted to gather relevant academic materials, as well as industry and competitor information.

Jordan Boyes opened Boyes Group Realty Inc. in 2015 after working as a Realtor® at another private realty firm in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for several years. They offered buying and selling services in the areas of commercial, residential and farm real estate. Over the past five years, they had experienced strong sales numbers and growth in the number of new agents joining the company. However, Boyes saw untapped potential in the marketplace and wanted to develop a brand strategy that took the best advantage of brand extension opportunities to drive the continued growth of his company.

This case is suitable at the undergraduate level for a branding course, marketing strategy course or services marketing course. The case is best used to apply the concept of developing brand identity and making strategic decisions in a service-based organization.

The purpose of this study is to compare quality perceptions of virtual servicescapes and physical service encounters among buyers and renters of real estate.

Qualitative data from a sample of 27 professionals engaged in higher education in the USA are gathered by recorded interview before being transcribed and imported into MAXQDA 2007 software for analytical coding.

Particular differences are found to exist between renters and buyers with regard to specific service attributes – for example, description of properties and type of visuals during the pre‐purchase stage, knowledge/experience and honest behavior of realtors during the service encounter stage and a continuous relationship with the realtor in the post‐encounter stage.

Generalization of the results is limited because the study utilizes data from only one industry (real estate) and from only one demographic segment (professionals in higher education).

Real‐estate firms need to pay attention to both the training of agents and the design and content of their websites.

This paper contributes to knowledge regarding virtual servicescapes in professional services.

The purpose of this research is to examine the concept of “potential quality” – that is, a company's tangible search qualities (such as the physical servicescape and virtual servicescape) – within the context of the real‐estate industry in the USA.

This qualitative study collects data by conducting personal in‐depth interviews with 34 respondents who had been recent buyers or renters of property. The data are then coded and themed to identify quality dimensions relevant to this industry.

The results indicate that a buyer's perception of the overall service quality of real‐estate service consists of two components: the interaction with a realtor (process quality); and the virtual servicescape, especially the firm's website design and content (potential quality). The study concludes that existing scales (such as SERVQUAL and RESERV) fail to capture the tangible component of service quality sufficiently in the real‐estate industry.

The study uses data from only one industry (real estate) and from only one demographic segment (professionals in higher education).

Service providers of intangible, high‐contact services must appreciate the importance of the virtual servicescape as a surrogate quality indicator that can help to reduce information asymmetries and consumers' uncertainty with regard to initiating a business relationship. Real estate firms need to pay attention to the training of agents and the design and content of their e‐service systems.

This study integrates potential quality, process quality, and outcome quality in a comprehensive proposed model. In particular, the study identifies “potential quality” as a combination of the attributes of the virtual service environment and the physical service environment.