there is a long list of companies and markets worthy of antitrust scrutiny... The real drag on the economy are the high prices of healthcare and housing
I'm curious what you see as the antitrust violations that lead to high housing prices?
I'm curious what you see as the antitrust violations that lead to high housing prices?
You have to live somewhere to get a vote there, so the people (sellers) who already own property in a location get a vote while the people (buyers) who are about to move there don't until after they have and have switched from customer to owner. The result is that the existing property owners have a lock on the local government and pass anti-competitive rules that constrain the housing supply and raise prices.
You might think renters would help there, but there are areas where the majority are not renters, and the areas with majority renters often end up with abominations like rent control which cause market rents to go even higher while neutralizing the threat to the anti-competitive rules by paying off just enough of the tenants to retain local majority support.
What kind of problem is it then? High prices being maintained by a purposeful conspiracy of existing owners to constrain supply sure sounds a lot like an antitrust problem.
> It's a matter of giving the majority of residents/voters what they want, even if it's bad for them in the long run.
But it's not necessarily bad for them. They make more money by monopolizing the local real estate market in the same way as any other cartel monopolizes anything.
Even if their choices are bad for the city itself, they may be planning to sell and move to another area before the long-term negative consequences to the city are felt.
Regulatory capture?
With consolidation of real estate brokerage firms, many home buyers may have overpaid due to a single firm representing both home seller and buyer, known as dual agency: https://therealdeal.com/2019/05/01/houlihan-lawrence-fails-t...
There is a third issue of large private equity firms buying large volumes of houses that may, in the future, warrant an antitrust investigation.
Your comment is focused on buying a home, but there can be dramatic consequences for home owners, the stakeholders forced into paying both agents.
When a seller has little equity and a poor housing market, exiting a primary mortgage can be financially impossible. A recent survey found a large fraction of the US can't handle a surprise $400 expense. So the follow-on effects of these commissions are not trivial for a large swath of the country.
I also agree that depending on location (looking at you SF metro) there are much bigger factors, e.g. constrained supply, inflating home prices.
https://concentrationcrisis.openmarketsinstitute.org/industr...