1. ¹School of Information Sciences and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA
2. ²Department of Information Science, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, USA
3. ³School of Information Studies, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA

Correspondence: S Sawyer, School of Information Sciences and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, 301F IST Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA. Tel: +1 814 865 4450; Fax: +1 814 865 6426; E-mail: sawyer@ist.psu.edu

Abstract

We discuss three industry-level changes in the US residential real estate industry due, in part, to the take up and uses of information and communication technologies (ICT): (1) changes in the processes of transacting residential real estate, (2) changing roles for information, and (3) changing nature of intermediation, with the real estate transaction as more complex than the seller–agent–buyer simplification would suggest. We speculate that these changes are currently indeterminate due to ongoing confusion among the impacts of first and second-level effects, the roles of ICT in redefining access to data, and the importance of localized, social structures of real estate markets. To develop these findings, we take an institutional perspective and draw on multiple data collection methods. This provides us a means to highlight the value of an institutional perspective for studying industrial-level change.