Investigating Gender Differences in Real Estate Trading Sentiments

This study examined whether a person’s gender influences his or her real estate trading sentiments. Previous studies have suggested that risk aversion, loss aversion, and expectations of probabilities can affect trading sentiments. Thus, this study inferred that a person’s gender can inform these three factors and thus lead to differences in real estate trading preferences between genders. More noticeable expectation adjustment behavior was observed in men than in women. However, no significant expectation errors were observed in both genders. Moreover, this study observed that gender differences in risk aversion were affected by the fear index, whereas gender differences in loss aversion were affected by unemployment rates. Stock market rallies affected only men’s perceptions toward real estate value. Overall, a more noticeable optimism was observed in men, who were significantly influenced by house price changes. JEL Classifications: G10, R3