Ethical Beliefs and Values of Real Estate Salespeople

INTRODUCTION Real estate licensees, along with other business participants, are often subjected to various pressures that may compromise accepted ethical behavior. This paper examines the ethical values of real estate salespeople licensed in the state of Nevada. In particular, we examine five constructs, or domains, of ethics. The constructs investigated are; deceit (deceitful practices), fraud (fraudulent activities), coercion (coercive power), self-interest, and influence dealing. The constructs are adapted from those developed by Harris (1990) and allow investigation of respondents' values. We then look at the effect various demographic factors may have upon licensees' ethical values such variables as; gender, age, real estate experience, and type of work performed that requires a real estate sales license. The study measures ethical values by using multilayered constructs, versus a common methodology of treating a range of ethical values as a single construct which is reported as a single, additive score. For each construct there are three different scenarios, for a total of fifteen questions. This multilayered approach allows the analysis of specific areas of ethical values in which there are statistically significant differences. Although numerous professional real estate organizations have developed codes of ethics to which the members are expected to subscribe, 1 there has been little empirical research pertaining to ethics in real estate. The majority of writings on real estate ethics has been descriptive and often include case studies, or examples, of ethical issues. For example, Real Estate 2 Issues, published by The Counselors of Real Estate (1994), devoted an entire issue to ethics in real estate, all articles being descriptive. (1992), wrote on the concept of ethics for property managers. Hurley (1996) wrote an essay on changes in the regulatory environment and ethical demands placed upon real estate appraisers. Similarly, books pertaining to ethics in real estate, such as Long (1995) and Pivar and Harlan (1995) follow the descriptive and case study format. Empirical studies include Allmon and Grant (1990), who used voice stress analysis on real estate sales agents. They found that 20% of the respondents gave stressed responses to ethical questions, which implies they either broke the code of ethics or were uncomfortable with it. Sayre, Joyce and Lambert (1991) found that for ethical code violations female real estate licensees in California are not penalized less severely than males and that females have less unethical violations than men. Long and Guglielmino (1994) administered a test of ethical judgment …