Building opportunity – Boyes Group realty incorporated

Research methodology The case was written based on personal interviews with Jordan Boyes. Case overview/synopsis Boyes Group, a private real estate brokerage in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, had been growing rapidly. Company founder Jordan Boyes needed to determine where to continue expanding. Saskatoon held great potential in home building, and he wondered if this would be a direction for his company. His real estate reputation was excellent, but he wondered if building homes would jeopardize his current relationships with local builders. He wanted to move fast, to avoid giving up market share to his competitors. Complexity academic level This case was designed for undergraduate and graduate classes in strategy.

Socially Responsible Real Estate Brokerage in the Pandemic Era

Social responsibility in the real estate brokerage, which is essentially “people’s business” may be particularly important while facing the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and coming down with COVID-19, which is largely the result of interpersonal contact. Thus, the sector seems to be an important link in preventing the spread of infections. The objective of the study is to analyze the adjustment of the real estate sector to new challenges in terms of CSR, related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Brokering Sales

This chapter examines how real estate brokerage routines pressured agents to use the racist market rubric in their work and how brokerages’ silence about unofficial yet potentially discriminatory routines served as a form of approval for agents adopting these routines. When agents interpreted established brokerage routines through the racist market rubric, they cultivated relationships with White individuals and excluded Asian, Black, and Latinx individuals. At times, brokerage routines—such as the automated use of the local real estate board’s market area map—required agents to advertise homes according to a racial–spatial hierarchy. In addition, brokerages remained silent when White agents pursued alternate routines outside the bounds of brokerage organizations, such as when they took on pocket listings—that is, homes not advertised on the Multiple Listing Service. Given the racial patterns of real estate networking in Houston, White home buyers had disproportionate access to pocket listings, yet White agents faced no verbal, professional, or legal sanctions for adopting this behavior.

Temporal Intersections of Mobility and Informality: Simsars as (Im)moral Agents in the Trajectories of Syrian Refugees in Turkey and Germany

During the Syrian conflict that sparked after the insurgency in 2011, 5,6 million Syrians sought refuge in other countries. This article looks into the informal practices that have significance in the trajectories of refugees who fled first to Turkey and then to Germany. These informal practices are directed at the facilitation of spatial and social mobilities between and within these two countries: a) cross-border migrant smuggling and, b) employment and real estate brokerage. The accounts of the research participants point to a differential moral worth attached to these two modalities of informal facilitation: they value the work of smuggling and detest the idea of other types of brokerage. These views are in direct contrast to the views by the respective states, and the article discusses the reasons behind the asymmetry of moral assessments between the refugees’ accounts and the perspective of the two states. It is argued that refugees’ differential assessment is related to how their experiences of time changed between their flight and settlement in their new homes, as well as their perception of borders.

Ethics in real estate: agency practices in Istanbul

Purpose This paper aims to discuss unethical behaviors that small real estate agencies encounter in real estate brokerage practices, the factors that give rise to a trust issue and the potential of legal arrangements for offering a solution. Small real estate agencies, almost the only actor in the real estate brokerage industry until the late twentieth century, still strive to survive despite the globalized market, large corporations increasingly dominating the market, the increasing informality and the real estate portals offering certain brokerage services online. While all these developments put pressure on small real estate agencies, the industry’s unethical behaviors diminish their reliability. Despite the efforts to overcome this issue through legal arrangements, the extent to which these regulations will be successful is still a matter of intense debate. Design/methodology/approach In total, 85 small real estate agencies operating in Istanbul, Turkey, were posed semi-structured open-ended questions and asked to provide an opinion about the unethical behaviors they face and the potential of a legal arrangement to solve those problems. In the second stage, three focus group interviews were held with representatives from large real estate brokerage companies to make a comparison and they were also posed similar questions. The answers were evaluated using content analysis. Findings It was found that the unethical behaviors in the real estate industry could mainly be evaluated in two categories, i.e. those stemming from structural problems of the industry and those stemming from problems related to service delivery and that a legal arrangement could only solve the first category. Research limitations/implications The research is limited to small real estate agencies that operate in Istanbul, the heart of the Turkish economy and the biggest city of the country where intensive efforts are spent to integrate into the global order. Originality/value It is considered that categorization of the causes of problems encountered by the numerous small real estate agencies that struggle to survive in the market and an analysis of the root causes of unethical behaviors in the industry and a discussion on potential solutions that may be brought bylaws will contribute to the literature.