23.11.12

Unattractive Real Estate Agents Achieve Quicker Sales | Dollars and Sex | Big Think

Unattractive Real Estate Agents Achieve Quicker Sales | Dollars and Sex | Big Think


I am trying to sell my house at the moment in a particularly hot local housing market. The market isn’t the only thing that is hot. So is my agent. It turns out that her attractiveness could be very good news in terms of the price the house is sold for, but bad news in terms of how long it is on the market.

Research published last month finds that the personal characteristics of real estate agents matter to house prices and the length of time a house is on the market, even after controlling for the quality of the house.

In their analysis the researchers control for age of the property, size of the house, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, location of the home and, as controls for quality, whether or not the house has hardwood flooring, brick siding and granite countertops.

It turns out having a male agent is bad for the selling price of a house. Both male listing agents (those acting on behalf of the seller) and male selling agents (those acting on behalf of the buyer) are associated with lower house prices than their female counterparts. The gender of the agent, however, has no effect on how long a house is on the market.

Being attractive, for both listing and selling agents, is associated with higher final sale price for a house, with the effect on house prices of having an attractive listing agent is about twice as large as that of an attractive selling agent.

Where homeowners lose out on having an attractive listing agent, however, is in having their house on the market for longer. The attractiveness of the selling agent has no effect on length of time on the market (which makes sense since, presumably, the characteristics of the buyer’s agent only matter when the house is finally sold).

Attractive agents don’t necessarily earn more annually than less attractive agents. The houses they sell go for a higher price, but they sell fewer houses than do less attractive agents (presumably because each house is on the market for longer).

The study also finds that non-white listing agents are associated with lower final prices and both non-white listing agents and selling agents are associated with longer times on the market.

The authors argue that this evidence of higher house prices and longer time on market for attractive agents is suggestive of two theories. Either attractive agents use their physical beauty to compensate for low productivity (i.e., they don’t actually work that hard to sell the house because their attractiveness helps get a higher price). Or they use their beauty to attract better listings that command higher prices but are no better (or worse) at selling them than other agents.

The authors of this paper side with the second explanation – that agents don’t actually use their beauty to sell properties more successfully, but rather are better at attracting listings that they can sell for higher prices.

If my agent read this piece I suspect that she would think to herself: I wonder if anyone has every done a study on the relationship between having an economist as a client and the length of time a house spends on the market? I have to admit to feeling a bit badly about how analytical I have been about the whole thing. The good news is, though, that the combination of being patient (which I am) and being attractive (which she is) appears to be a winner. Here’s hoping!

References:

Sean P. Salter, Franklin G. Mixon Jr & Ernest W. King (2012). “Broker beauty and boon: a study of physical attractiveness and its effect on real estate brokers’ income and productivity.” Applied Financial Economics, vol. 22(10): p.p. 811-825

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a ..... - Personal quotes by Albert Einstein

Personal quotes by Albert Einstein

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

Albert Einstein


The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

Albert Einstein


Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.

Albert Einstein


I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty

Albert Einstein



18.11.12

Mark Twain - Worthless Second-Hand Beliefs

Mark Twain on Worthless Second-Hand Beliefs



"In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."

—Mark Twain, Autobiography

13.11.12

Hitler - His dark charisma - BBC News - Viewpoint

BBC News - Viewpoint: His dark charisma



Montage of Adolf Hitler images

 

 

 



Viewpoint: His dark charisma

Adolf Hitler was an unlikely leader but he still formed a connection with millions of German people, generating a level of charismatic attraction that was almost without parallel. It is a stark warning for the modern day, says historian Laurence Rees.

At the heart of the story of Adolf Hitler is one gigantic, mysterious question: how was it possible that a character as strange and personally inadequate as Hitler ever gained power in a sophisticated country at the heart of Europe, and was then loved by millions of people?

The answer to this vital question is to be found not just in the historical circumstances of the time - in particular the defeat of Germany in World War I and the depression of the early 1930s - but in the nature of Hitler's leadership.

It's this aspect of the story that makes this history particularly relevant to our lives today.

About Adolf Hitler

Hitler at a Nazi rally
  • Hitler was born 20 April 1889 in Braunau-am-Inn
  • Left school at 16 with no qualifications and struggled to make a living as a painter in Vienna
  • Enlisted in the German army during WWI, where he was wounded and decorated
  • Joined the fascist German Workers' Party in 1919
  • By 1921 was the leader of what was now the Nazi Party
  • In the 1932 elections the Nazis became the largest party in the German parliament
  • Invasion of Poland in September 1939 began WWII
  • Committed suicide in Berlin on 30 April 1945
Source: BBC History
Hitler was the archetypal "charismatic leader". He was not a "normal" politician - someone who promises policies like lower taxes and better health care - but a quasi-religious leader who offered almost spiritual goals of redemption and salvation. He was driven forward by a sense of personal destiny he called "providence".

Before WWI he was a nobody, an oddball who could not form intimate relationships, was unable to debate intellectually and was filled with hatred and prejudice.

But when Hitler spoke in the Munich beer halls in the aftermath of Germany's defeat in WWI, suddenly his weaknesses were perceived as strengths.

His hatred chimed with the feelings of thousands of Germans who felt humiliated by the terms of the Versailles treaty and sought a scapegoat for the loss of the war. His inability to debate was taken as strength of character and his refusal to make small talk was considered the mark of a "great man" who lived apart from the crowd.

More than anything, it was the fact that Hitler found that he could make a connection with his audience that was the basis of all his future success. And many called this connection "charisma".

"The man gave off such a charisma that people believed whatever he said," says Emil Klein, who heard Hitler speak in the 1920s.

But Hitler did not "hypnotise" his audience. Not everyone felt this charismatic connection, you had to be predisposed to believe what Hitler was saying to experience it. Many people who heard Hitler speak at this time thought he was an idiot.

"I immediately disliked him because of his scratchy voice," says Herbert Richter, a German veteran of WWI who encountered Hitler in Munich in the early 1920s.

Hitler inspecting his troops

"He shouted out really, really simple political ideas. I thought he wasn't quite normal."
In the good economic times, during the mid-to-late twenties in Germany, Hitler was thought charismatic by only a bunch of fanatics. So much so that in the 1928 election the Nazis polled only 2.6% of the vote.

Yet less than five years later Hitler was chancellor of Germany and leader of the most popular political party in the country.


Find out more

Hitler
What changed was the economic situation. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 there was mass unemployment in Germany and banks crashed. 

"The people were really hungry," says Jutta Ruediger, who started to support the Nazis around this time. "It was very, very hard. And in that context, Hitler with his statements seemed to be the bringer of salvation."

She looked at Hitler and suddenly felt a connection with him.

"I myself had the feeling that here was a man who did not think about himself and his own advantage, but solely about the good of the German people."

Hitler told millions of Germans that they were Aryans and therefore "special" and racially "better" people than everyone else, something that helped cement the charismatic connection between leader and led.

Hitler walking through a guard of honour

He did not hide his hatred, his contempt for democracy or his belief in the use of violence to further political ends from the electorate. But, crucially, he spoke out only against carefully defined enemies like Communists and Jews.

Since the majority of ordinary Germans were not in these groups, as long as they embraced the new world of Nazism, they were relatively free from persecution - at least until the war started to go badly for the Germans.



Anti-government graffiti in Greece
“Start Quote - Unemployment was 30% in Germany when Hitler took power, it is 25.1% and rising in Greece”
Paul Mason Economics editor, Newsnight
This history matters to us today. Not because history offers "lessons" - how can it since the past can never repeat itself exactly? But because history can contain warnings. 

In an economic crisis millions of people suddenly decided to turn to an unconventional leader they thought had "charisma" because he connected with their fears, hopes and latent desire to blame others for their predicament. And the end result was disastrous for tens of millions of people.

It's bleakly ironic that German Chancellor Angela Merkel was greeted in Athens recently with swastika banners carried by angry Greeks protesting at what they see as German interference in their country.

Ironic because it is in Greece itself - amid terrible economic crisis - that we see the sudden rise of a political movement like the Golden Dawn that glories in its intolerance and desire to persecute minorities.

And it is led by a man who has claimed there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz. Can there be a bigger warning than that?

Laurence Rees is a former creative director of history programmes for the BBC and the author of six books on World War II.