We experimentally study bounded rationality in real estate by observing the effects of market news and media credibility cues on house price predictions. Non-professional market actors read news articles about recent house price trends from online news sources varying in perceived trustworthiness and brand anonymity, and then predicted selling prices of apartments for monetary reward. Boundedly rational actors are expected to make (imperfect) use of public information and rely on contextual ques to infer information quality. Price predictions were in the opposite direction of market trends in a control condition without market news. As hypothesized, (1) market news on price trends increased the accuracy of predictions, and (2) information from a more credible medium had stronger effect on price predictions when its brand was made visible. Systematic inaccuracies in price predictions, their improvement with market information, and reliance on credibility cues suggest that non-professional property valuations are boundedly rational.

我们通过观察市场新闻和媒体可信度线索对房价预测的影响，实验性地研究了房地产的有限理性。非专业市场参与者从在线新闻来源阅读有关近期房价趋势的新闻文章，这些新闻来源在感知可信度和品牌匿名性方面各不相同，然后预测公寓的售价以获得金钱奖励。预期有限理性的参与者会（不完美地）利用公共信息并依赖上下文问题来推断信息质量。在没有市场消息的控制条件下，价格预测与市场趋势相反。正如假设的那样，（1）关于价格趋势的市场新闻提高了预测的准确性，（2）当品牌变得可见时，来自更可信媒体的信息对价格预测的影响更大。