Freakonomics in the Times Magazine: Payback Time
In their June 10, 2007, column for the New York Times Magazine, Dubner and Levitt present some interesting new research on real estate sales. No, it’s not what you’re thinking: more Realtor bashing! Although it is true that they have written before about the imperfect nature of the Realtor’s commission model, this column takes a somewhat different tack. It’s about a little-known trick known as a cash-back transaction, in which a buyer receives a “rebate” to finance his own down-payment – a rebate that the lending bank never finds out about. This blog post supplies additional research materials.