What is the market's attitude towards purchase of real estate without the use of a real estate broker?

Bachelor i eiendomsmegling- fordypningsoppgaveI denne oppgaven har vi ønsket å se på markedets holdning til kjøp av bolig uten bruk av mellommann. I tillegg har vi sett på hvilken risiko kjøper blir eksponert for ved slik omsetning av eiendom, sammenlignet med salg via megler eller advokat. Det er skrevet og foretatt mange undersøkelser om direkte salg fra selgers ståsted, men mye mindre kjøpers utgangspunkt. Vi valgte å bruke en kvantitativ undersøkelse som forskningsmetode. Dette fordi vi ikke kunne finne tilsvarende undersøkelse fra tidligere om dette temaet, noe som gjorde undersøkelsen utfordrende og spennende. Undersøkelsen viser at tilliten til meglerbransjen er høy. Det er gjennomgående stor forskjell i den tryggheten markedet gir uttrykk for til kjøpsprosessen via megler sammenlignet med ved direkte kjøp. Dette gjelder i forhold til budrunder, salgsprospekt, prisantydning, visning og oppgjør. I tillegg kommer det fram at forbrukerne har krav og forventninger til hva som må være tilstede ved et boligkjøp. Her er det så å si et absolutt krav om at tilstandsrapport må foreligge, og de aller fleste ønsker å ha en boligkjøperforsikring. Det var stor forskjell på omfang og oversiktlighet på salgsprospektene fra hhv megler, selge selv tjenesten Propr og de fra private selgere. Proprs prospekter var i gjennomsnitt dobbelt så store i sidetall sammenlignet med de fra meglerne. Sett i sammenheng med den ofte begrensede tiden kjøper bruker ved boligkjøp, er dette en av de største utfordringer kjøper har ved kjøp direkte fra selger. Den kontroll, siling og presentasjon av informasjon som megler gjør, er et vesentlig bidrag til å trygge omsetning av bolig. Når dette ansvaret blir overlatt til forbruker, øker risikoen for kjøper.Engelsk sammendrag (abstract) In this bachelor thesis we will take a closer look at the marked’s attitude towards purchase of real estate without the use of a real estate broker. In addition, we have examined what risks the buyers will be exposed to in such sales of property, compared with sales through broker or lawyer. It has been written a lot of research on private sales from the seller's point of view, but much less from the buyer's perspective. We chose to use a quantitative survey as a research method. We could not find a similar survey, which made our thesis challenging and exciting. The survey shows that the consumers have trust in the real estate industry. There is a big difference in the levels of trust the consumers express for purchase through real estate brokers compared with private sales. This applies to bidding rounds, sales prospect, price estimate, open house and settlement. In addition, it appears that consumers have requirements and expectations of what must be present at a private purchase. There is an absolute requirement for a technical status report to be available, and most people want a buyers insurance. There was a big difference in the scope and structure of the sales prospects from brokers, Propr and those from private sellers. Proprs prospects were twice as large as those from the brokers. With this in mind, the large unstructured prospects and the limited time, makes one of the biggest challenges the buyer faces when buying real estate without an real estate agent. The control, selection and presentation of information that the broker makes is a significant contribution to the risk free real estate purchase. When this responsibility is left to the consumer alone, the risk increases

Corporate social responsibility as cultural meaning management: a critique of the marketing of ‘ethical’ bottled water

To date, the primary focus of research in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been on the strategic implications of CSR for corporations and less on an evaluation of CSR from a wider political, economic and social perspective. In this paper, we aim to address this gap by critically engaging with marketing campaigns of so-called ‘ethical’ bottled water. We especially focus on a major CSR strategy of a range of different companies that promise to provide drinking water for (what they name as) ‘poor African people’ by way of Western consumers purchasing bottled water. Following Fairclough's approach, we unfold a three-step critical discourse analysis of the marketing campaigns of 10 such ‘ethical’ brands. Our results show that bottled water companies try to influence consumers' tastes through the management of the cultural meaning of bottled water, producing a more ‘ethical’ and ‘socially responsible’ perception of their products/brands. Theoretically, we base our analysis on McCracken's model of the cultural meaning of consumer goods, which, we argue, offers a critical perspective of the recent emergence of CSR and business ethics initiatives. We discuss how these marketing campaigns can be framed as historical struggles associated with neo-liberal ideology and hegemony. Our analysis demonstrates how such CSR strategies are part of a general process of the reproduction of capitalist modes of accumulation and legitimation through the usage of cultural categories

Critical Reflections on Thinking, Practice, Content and Consequences

nonPeerReviewe

Life cycle sustainability assessment : a tool for exercising due diligence in life cycle management

Starting from the output ‘The Future We Want’ of the Rio+20 conference 2012, the main focus of this chapter is on social responsibility (SR) in the value chain. The historical context of SR is discussed, related to the international standards as are the Guidance on Social Responsibility and the Global Reporting Initiative, linked with the management of organizations and enterprises. It is emphasized that due diligence along the value chain is seen as a requirement for claiming ‘social responsibility’. Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) contributes to the assessment and life cycle management (LCM) to the follow-up of exercising due diligence, all within the context of sustainable development. The over-arching LCSA is a combination of three different life cycle assessment techniques allowing to assess the impacts along the value chain: environmental LCA, social LCA and life cycle costing

Corporate Social Responsibility and Multiple Agency Theory: A case study of internal stakeholder engagement

[Abstract]: Employee engagement via Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) involves conflicts of interests among firms, employees and political institutions. We studied the international transfer of employees in an airline company as a case study of a CSR strategy based on human resource management. From a double approach of Multiple Agency Theory and Resource-Based perspective we found that, by increasing worker mobility costs, the European Union hindered the firm´s CSR strategy of employee engagement. This contrasts with the stated aim of the European Union to promote worker mobility

Managing Stakeholders or the Environment? The Challenge of Relating Indicators in Practice

Many organizations present their environmental work in the form of annual reports and use the indicators in them for follow-up. However, internal communication and management is needed for environmental improvements. The indicators found in reports may be suitable for external communication, but are they also suitable internally and operationally? This article reviews the existing literature on environmental indicators. With the help of an operational approach, from organisation theory, and a life-cycle approach, indicators are analysed. The analysis shows that formulating indicators for internal management is not an easy task; available guidelines are of little help. It is concluded that the environment can be managed internally by relating indicators. Therefore, an additional set of indicators for internal management and a wider responsibility for the life cycle are recommended. The analysis and recommendations are illustrated with examples drawn from the field of property management

The effects of corporate and country sustainability characteristics on the cost of debt: an international investigation

We investigate the relationship between corporate and country sustainability on the cost of bank loans. We look into 470 loan agreements signed between 2005 and 2012 with borrowers based in 28 different countries across the world and operating in all major industries. Our principal findings reveal that country sustainability, relating to both social and environmental frameworks, has a statistically and economically impactful effect on direct financing of economic activity. An increase of one unit in a country's sustainability score is associated with an average decrease in the cost of debt by 64 basis points. Our international analysis shows that the environmental dimension of a country's institutional framework is approximately twice as impactful as the social dimension, when it comes to determining the cost of corporate loans. On the other hand, we find no conclusive evidence that firm-level sustainability influences the interest rates charged to borrowing firms by banks. Our main findings survive a battery of robustness tests and additional analyses concerning subsamples, alternative sustainability metrics and the effects of financial crisis