Tim Steller
Given recent news, you’d be excused for concluding that conspiracies are what caused our housing affordability crisis.You would be right, but maybe not in the way you’re thinking.That’s because the conspiracies that we’ve learned about the last few weeks appear real, but they likely only have had a relatively small overall impact on housing prices.There’s the one conspiracy related to homebuying that is so embedded in our real-estate culture that we’ve just accepted it all these years. Here I’m referring to the 6% commission for buyer’s and seller’s agents on every home sold that has predominated in the industry for decades. Many of us paid it without thinking, because that’s just the way buying a house worked. Now, thanks to a lawsuit settlement, it’s going away.Then there’s the conspiracy related to the rents for apartments. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office filed suit against an apartment service company called RealPage and a series of apartment owners in Phoenix and Tucson, alleging they colluded and fixed prices at higher than market levels.
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The lawsuit makes a compelling argument, which has also been made in news stories and other lawsuits around the country. But then there’s the conspiracy that is so engrained in our cultures and ordinances that we are only beginning to notice it. It’s the conspiracy of the haves versus the have-nots.And when Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs had a chance to side with the have-nots last week, she sided instead with the haves.
Arizona Daily Star columnist Tim Steller
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