Sofie R. Waltl
University of Cambridge
Alexander Huber
Vienna University of Economics and Business
Abstract
On July 1, 2023, Austria introduced the Bestellerprinzip (“ordering principle”), requiring the party hiring a real estate agent to pay the associated commission. The reform aimed to reduce tenants’ housing costs. Using comprehensive rental listing and administrative data from Vienna, we study the effects of this policy on listing volumes, asking rents, and the use of real estate agents. Using staggered event-study and difference-in-discontinuity designs, we find a sharp decline in rental listings following the reform, driven primarily by reduced agent usage. At the same time, asking rents increased significantly across market segments, with especially strong increases for agent-listed and rent-controlled units. These findings suggest that landlords passed brokerage costs on to tenants and that rent controls were weakly enforced at the advertising stage. Overall, the reform failed to reduce short-run housing costs for new tenants. More broadly, our results show that shifting statutory incidence in rental brokerage markets can substantially alter market equilibrium without necessarily changing economic incidence.
Keywords: Rental Market; Ordering Principle; Statutory Incidence; Agents; Volume Effects; Price Effects, Free Riders; Rent Control; Austria
JEL codes: D04, H22, R31, R38
Presentations (incl. scheduled):
[1st Housing Policy Symposium, WU Vienna][4th Workshop on Residential Housing: Balancing Sustainability and Affordability in the Building Sector, University of Zurich][Center for Excellence in Finance and Economic Research (CEFER), Bank of Lithuania][Housing Studies Association Annual Conference 2026, Sheffield][Land Economy Early Career Researchers’ Conference 2026, University of Cambridge][Cambridge Endowment for Research in Finance (CERF) 25th Anniversary Conference, University of Cambridge][6th Workshop on Rent Control and Other Housing Policies, KTH Stockholm]
Sofie R Waltl 