Abstract Do out‐of‐town (OOT) individual investors suffer from asymmetric information in the rental market? Using single‐family residential rental data, we find that OOT landlords charge a 2.85% lower rent than local counterparts, with the discount increasing as the distance between the landlord's address and the property's address increases. Prior local investment experience and stronger social ties mitigate this effect, whereas rental market heterogeneity amplifies it. These findings support that information asymmetry may serve as an underlying mechanism. Our results highlight information friction in real estate rental markets, leading to inefficiencies in rental pricing.
Liuming Yang (Tue,) studied this question.