The Impact of Compensation Scheme on Housing Agent Performance

This paper discusses the impact of compensation schemes on housing agent performance. This study treats housing agents as subjects and distributed 867 questionnaires by mail. A total of 776 responses were retrieved, of which 510 were effective samples for a valid return rate of 66.5%. The feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) method was used for estimation. According to the empirical results, the individual performance of agents under a Type I compensation scheme, which is similar to the Japanese model of a high base salary and a low proportion of compensation based on performance, is not significantly better than the individual performance of agents under a Type II compensation scheme, which is similar to the American model of zero base salary and a high proportion of compensation based on performance. The empirical results suggest that in recent years, compensation schemes in Taiwan’s brokerage industries have gradually shifted from the Japanese model with a high base salary to the American model without a base salary.