The ethics of real estate agents in emerging economies: A cross‐sectional survey of agents and service consumers' perception in Nigeria

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate and compare both real estate agents and their service consumers' perception on ethics of real estate agents in Nigeria; an emerging economy with less organized and transparent property market. Design/methodology/approach - The study adopts a survey approach to research. Using Bartlett et al.'s model of determining sample size, a total of 125 firms were randomly selected from the list of registered real estate consultancy firms in Lagos metropolis. For each firm contacted (through business addresses), three service consumers were randomly selected from their archives of consumers. Questionnaires were personally administered and retrieved with useful response rates of 70 per cent and 75 per cent for real estate agents and service consumers respectively. Data emanating from the survey were analysed using frequency distribution and ANOVA analyses. Findings - Among other findings, the results indicate that both real estate agents' and consumers' ratings of ethics of real estate agents is average on a five-point Likert scale. Furthermore, real estate agents' self perception of the five year trend in their ethics was positive, albeit with a strong belief that commercial consideration should take precedence over an ethical stance in a real estate transaction. Practical implications - In spite of the uniformly high self-perception of agent ethics, most practitioners in real estate agency consultancy believe that commercial or economic considerations are more important than an ethical stance in a real estate transaction. This raises a serious fundamental issue about the essence and practical understanding of ethics by practitioners and what ethics entails in the discharge of their professional duty. Originality/value - The paper complements the existing body of literature on real estate ethics by providing an empirical assessment of real estate agents in an emerging economy.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]