The Government's Endgame

A document from 2021 lays out what the government might want to see when it's all said and done

Those of you who attended the webinar heard me lay out a somewhat dark future for residential real estate after the commission lawsuits. And I spent some time on the powers of the US Department of Justice and what they could do if they chose to.

A key observation is that no matter what happens in the civil antitrust lawsuits of Sitzer, Moehrl, Nosalek and others, even if there is a settlement that everybody agrees to, the DOJ is not a party to any of those and is not bound by any settlement. The DOJ can pursue its own ends.

What are those ends?

This is a topic I’ve touched on over the years, but I recently discovered a paper published in 2021 that does quite a bit to lay out the thinking of policymakers. It is also helpful as it summarizes quite a bit of the academic research and other policy papers over the years, so it is valuable as a way to trace the development of the thinking.

I believe this paper provides a roadmap as to what the DOJ, the FTC and other policymakers inside and outside of government want to see happen to residential real estate. If there is to be significant regulation by the FTC, a lot of those will be guided by the ideas in this paper.

Let’s get into it.