Local Presence, Scale and Vertical Integration: Brands as Signals

The positioning of a property along a given rent-vacancy signaling frontier depends on its ownership, branding, and quality. Confirmation of a separating equilibrium occurs if the quality from the branding, itself dependent on costly management decisions, results in rent differentials. For institutional-grade apartments in metro Atlanta, Georgia, local presence, scale, and vertical integration are productive in improving quality, signaled by branding. Even after adjustment for self-selection and physical characteristics, branded properties achieve gross rents at least 8% higher than unbranded properties with no sacrifice in occupancy. Given that branding depends on management decisions, then rents and occupancy do not depend on hedonic physical characteristics alone. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]