[AnthonyMouse]

The housing case is non-traditional because the entity the cartel organizes through is the local government rather than a corporation.

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.

[Johnny555]

I don't think that's really an anti-trust problem, and I don't think you can call a majority of voters in an area a "cartel". 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.

[AnthonyMouse]

> I don't think that's really an anti-trust problem

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.

[klipt]

> What kind of problem is it then?

Regulatory capture?

[nerfhammer]

That's hardly mutually exclusive with cartel behavior

[kortilla]

It’s still a cartel from a market perspective. They are colluding to control supply.

[xamuel]

You're painting a picture of greedy homeowners restricting housing to make their investments go up. But there are other, more legitimate reasons for homeowners to resist turning every town into high-density mega-apartments. Some people highly value a quiet neighborhood. Some people (like myself) are extremely sensitive to the sounds of neighbors playing music with subwoofers. Good luck avoiding that in a high-density apartment (you'd need about 5 feet of solid concrete to damp out a loud subwoofer next door).

[anthonypasq]

then dont live in a city.

[xamuel]

Sure, I'll go move out into the country. And others like me will do the same. And then soon people will start whining about how expensive it is to join us, because of the low population density, and how we ought to replace our houses with apartments...