When it comes to what a possible Kamala Harris or Donald Trump victory in the presidential election means for the future of antitrust enforcement in the real estate space, lawyer and industry analyst Rob Hahn may have said it best.
“Nobody knows anything,” Hahn wrote in the Nov. 1 edition of his Notorious ROB email newsletter. “Neither Trump nor Harris have made antitrust a big issue in their campaigns. None of the people running have any kind of a real background in antitrust, and only Trump has any kind of a track record.”
Although the war between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has been going on for decades, the most recent round of battles began under the Trump administration in 2018. That’s when Congressmen Tom Marino (R-Pa.) and David Cicilline (D-R.I.) sent a letter to the DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking them to “examine competition-related issues in the real estate brokerage industry.”
The investigation eventually led to a lawsuit, which was settled in 2020. But NAR did not finalize the settlement until after Joe Biden took office in 2021. And under the Biden administration, the DOJ decided to withdraw from the settlement, leading to the most recent round of lawsuits and appeals.
Additionally, an article published by the New York Law Journal found that the FTC’s and DOJ’s antitrust divisions have roughly doubled the average number of complaints seeking to enjoin transactions filed each year under Biden, compared to filings with the agency under the Trump administration.
Trump’s track record shows that he has generally been more pro-business than other administrations. This has led to speculation that under a second Trump term, many of the real estate industry’s antitrust concerns would go away, while a Harris presidency would result in a continuation of the status quo. But industry analysts and attorneys are not so sure.
While the Consumer…