You Pays Your Money and You Takes Your Choice: Real Estate Agent Commission Reform and Austria’s Partial Strict Rent Control Regime

In 2023, Austria introduced the Bestellerprinzip (“ordering principle”), requiring the party hiring a real estate agent to pay the commission. Using rental listing and administrative data from Vienna, we study the reform’s effects on listings, rents, and agent usage. Using event-study and difference-in-discontinuity designs, we find a sharp decline in listings, driven mainly by reduced agent use, alongside significant rent increases, especially for agent-listed and rent-controlled units. The results suggest that landlords passed brokerage costs on to tenants and that rent controls are weakly enforced. Overall, the reform failed to reduce short-run housing costs, but may enhance residential mobility.