Title

: Real Estate Brokerage Industry's reputation - a study from a relationship marketing perspective

Level

: Bachelor thesis in business administration

Authors

: Sanna Soininen & Sofia Pulkkinen

Supervisor

: Jonas Kågström

Date

: 2013 – August

Background

: The background to this investigation was primarily another survey, conducted by Fastighetsbyrån, a Swedish real estate agency. According to the survey, only 5% of the Swedish population claims to have high confidence for realtors. The problem discussion revolves around statistics about how few real estate agents who are notified and receive sanctions each year. We believe that those numbers doesn't make sense when compared to how few people trust realtors, which is where our aim with the study comes from.

Purpose

: The aim of this study is to investigate the real estate brokerage industry's reputation by previous research in relationship marketing.

Method

: The study was conducted with a deductive and for the most part with a positivistic approach. The theoretical framework consists of research and literature on the three topics grouped together in this study - rumors, relationship marketing and real estate brokerage. Positivism is often associated with quantitative methods, and so, even in our essay. For the collection of empirical data a questionnaire survey was conducted.

Results & conclusions

: Our study shows that relationship marketing is an important part of a company's reputation. We discuss a lot about trust, which is a benefit that comes from relationship marketing, and its significance. Commitment and trust turns out to be two main components when it comes to relationship marketing, they constantly recur in our discussion. We also discuss about whether theories are consistent with the results we received from our survey, and we

conclude that our investigation very much confirms the theories that already exist. The survey also shows that the Swedish population lacks knowledge of real estate. That may be a reason why it is often spread negative rumors about realtors, which we could see using the theory of rumors. Finally, we note that the real estate brokerage industry's reputation is better than expected.

Suggestions for further research

: The research about relationship marketing and rumors together is limited and there for we open for further research in the same field. It would be interesting to examine in greater depth how relationship marketing affects a company's reputation. You could do a study that compares a specific company's reputation at a time. Then you let the company introduce relationship marketing-related actions and for example, a year later, again examine this corporate's reputation. That way you could find out, more specifically, how relationship marketing affect reputation.

Thesis grant

: The grant is primarily geared towards real estate brokerage firms and organizations in the real estate brokerage industry, but other companies can take advantage of our results too. The contribution to the real estate brokerage industry is mainly the increased knowledge of the real estate brokerage industry's reputation. It is important for both real estate brokers and organizations in the field to be updated about the rumor. It is also important to understand the meaning of nurturing their relationships, and to act ethically. These results can be applied in other industries as well.

Keywords

: real

estate, reputation, relationship marketing, trust, ethics