Developing a Multi-modal Listing Service for Real Estate Agency Practice in Nigeria

Fraudsters posing as real estate agents threaten the reputation of real estate agencies in Nigeria. These fraudsters have continually defrauded unsuspecting members of the public. The major cause of this lapse is due largely to the fact that there is no known platform provided in the country that allows members of the public to verify a given real estate agent. This paper aims to provide support to real estate agency practice in Nigeria by developing a multi-modal listing service for verifying registered real estate agents and to also provide information on real estates available for sale, lease or rent. The requirements for the system were gathered through observation, literature survey and user survey. These requirements were then modelled using the Unified Modelling Language (UML). The system is developed both as a web and mobile application using an open source content management system (WordPress). This paper essentially presents the: requirements gathering process, design and implementation of the multimodal listing service as well as how it compares with other similar services developed elsewhere. The multi-modal listing service developed in this study is a welcome development due to the availability and widespread adoption of the Internet and Internet-enabled mobile devices in Nigeria. The tool can be of use to the National Association of Estate Agents in Nigeria - a body saddled with the responsibility of rebranding the real estate agency profession in Nigeria

E-commerce in the Malaysian real estate agency industry

Advances in Information and Communications Technology have revolutionised the ways of doing business in the real estate industry. However, scarce literature on real estate agency Internet adoption, particularly in Malaysia limits understanding on the extent of applications and implications of Internet on real estate agency business activities. Thus, this study aims to investigate how real estate agencies in Malaysia adopt Internet strategy, focusing on websites, in their business activities. Questionnaires were distributed to 21 registered real estate agencies in Johor Bahru to obtain information on the firm’s background, use and impact of websites on the firms’ business. Analysis results showed active participation and utilisation of Internet by Malaysian real estate agency firms. Websites were used as a platform to promote the company’s brand and property listings to the prospective buyers. There was a positive relationship between website and sale generation with number of website visitors being an important factor in sales generation. Consumers concern for information security remained a major barrier in the real estate business. The findings of this study enhances understanding on website use and impact in the real estate agencies business. Further study may explore other types of Internet strategy such as emails and social media

Risk perception, profit efficiency in commercial banking : multicountry empirical evidence over 2000-2013

This thesis aims to evaluate and discuss two important aspects of commercial banks performance, implicitly underlying the process of profit generation and its sustainability. Namely, behaviour towards risk, based on data from the UK, the U.S., Japan and profit efficiency, based on data from the UK, the U.S., Japan and Switzerland. In addressing those issues, I used a relatively large data set covering 13 years, divided by the pre-crisis (2000-2006), the financial crisis (2007-2009) and the post-crisis (2010-2013) intervals.Contrary to the neoclassical perspective on risk taking behaviour commonly applied in economics, my research in chapter three introduces an alternative approach - the propositions of Prospect Theory (PT) (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). In line with PT, Bank’s choices under risk and uncertainty are seen as a result involving subjective judgement, sensitive to the way the problem of choice is framed relatively to a performance target, labelled as a status quo. Examination of risk behaviour in the context of PT did not find the significant recognition by previous researchers within commercial banking, therefore the current work aims to fill that identified gap.My next important contribution is in chapter four. There, I established new empirical evidence on profit efficiency. The research incorporates variables not considered before by the literature on profit efficiency in commercial banking, like bank assets liquidity and a consumer confidence index.Overall results indicate that subjectivity bias was an important element of commercial bank risk’s behaviour in pre-crisis. As consistent with the predictions of PT I have found evidence for the presence of non-constant risk preferences.The findings on profit efficiency analysis show that all analysed commercial banks over the crisis period experienced a considerable drop in their ability to generate profits efficiently. Rise of bank assets illiquidity was the most important, significant driver of profit inefficiency over all of the analysed periods. Consumer positive expectations to the state of the economy contributed to improvement of bank profit efficiency. Negative association between market concentration and profit efficiency levels for the pre-crisis period confirms banks’ discretion in profit efficiency maximization