People don't need lemons. They do need home. So often in free market economies you see companies virtually colluding to put themselves first in sectors where consumers are required to buy into that product or service. Because in those sectors, businesses have a captive audience with no other options and they don't need to worry about reputation.
Housing is one of those sectors. Often people need a home based around requirements other than the reputation of the builder like location to the school that their kids already attend, or family members, or work, bus or rail stations, etc. Cost to rent. Is parking available. etc
If you can pick a property based on the reputation of the builder than you're already in a class above most people.
I know you want to believe that a free market fixes all of life's problems but it's really not that simple. For starters even if your ideology worked in practice, you still require a bunch of customers to get burnt initially in order to generate that reputation. However there's also nothing stopping disreputable businesses restarting with a new company name and branding so the reputation model doesn't work in practice (you see this all the time with online sellers eg on Amazon). And that's on top of the former point about how some products are essentials that people don't have the luxury to shop around on.
We have much stricter regulations in Europe and it doesn't harm our commerce. So you absolutely can have a vibrant market and regulations to protect consumers.
> Well your past history of housing problems would suggest your optimism here is misplaced
Who is 'you' in that sentence? I can see that I have optimism, but what's my past history of housing problems?
And what makes you so sure that those past problems were caused by not enough regulation? (Instead of eg too much regulation, the wrong kind of regulation, or they might have nothing to do with regulation at all.)
> If you can pick a property based on the reputation of the builder than you're already in a class above most people.
Huh? It's always a trade-off. All else being equal, I'd grab a house from a builder (or landlord) with a great reputation before one without a reputation or even a bad reputation. I might even pay a bit extra for a great reputation.
Your argument would apply equally well to jobs: people need a job just as much as they need housing. Yet, employers with great reputation still find it easier to attract good applicants than those with lousy reputations.
> I know you want to believe that a free market fixes all of life's problems but it's really not that simple.
Who said that? Huh?
I suggested that in this specific case more regulation is not required.
The free market won't get you a girlfriend, for example. But neither would any sensible regulation.
> We have much stricter regulations in Europe and it doesn't harm our commerce. So you absolutely can have a vibrant market and regulations to protect consumers.
You know that European real GDP per capita is quite a lot lower than in the US? (You can pick almost any European country. Or pick the average etc.)
And the US is also still pretty overregulated.
I grew up in Germany, but put my money where my mouth is, and now live in rather more pro-market Singapore.
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this. Partly because this is really more of an opinion-based discussion but also because comparing Singapore to the US or Europe is never going to work given how massively different their cultures are. So there's far more variables at play than just how the markets are run.
That all said, one part did stick out for me:
> Your argument would apply equally well to jobs: people need a job just as much as they need housing. Yet, employers with great reputation still find it easier to attract good applicants than those with lousy reputations.
I'd argue that disproves your point rather than proves it. The reason being, lousy jobs still exist because employers know that people need jobs. So there's no incentive for employers to change. Hence why we need employment laws.
This comes back to my point about different cultures. For example some American and UK companies have been gaming the system, arguing that people who work from them are not employees. In the UK we call them gig workers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gig_worker) and they're effectively working for 0 "dollars" if business is slow that day. Yet some people work them simply because they have no other choice.
In Singapore, we just have employment laws that aren't as strenuous on the employer, so there's less need to 'game the system'.
Oversimplified: legally everyone is already a gig worker in Singapore.
Seems to work out fairly well.
This is also closer to how the system worked in eg the US until a few decades ago, when it was easier to get a job just by walking into the shop and asking and also work your way through college etc.
I remember, Slatestarcodex had an article about the dangers of outsourcing your social welfare to employers.
I feel this point is getting lost on you but Singapore has a vastly different culture to America. The fact that Singapore doesn't need to "game the system" isn't because there are fewer regulations. It's because it's a different culture.
The reason America needs legislation is because American companies have a culture of abusing a free market.
What works for one country doesn't automatically work for another.
Singapore is mostly made up of immigrants from China. Remember, China is the place where we like to complain about 'companies abusing a free market' even more than in the US.
Well your past history of housing problems would suggest your optimism here is misplaced
> It's very similar to the 'market for lemons' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
People don't need lemons. They do need home. So often in free market economies you see companies virtually colluding to put themselves first in sectors where consumers are required to buy into that product or service. Because in those sectors, businesses have a captive audience with no other options and they don't need to worry about reputation.
Housing is one of those sectors. Often people need a home based around requirements other than the reputation of the builder like location to the school that their kids already attend, or family members, or work, bus or rail stations, etc. Cost to rent. Is parking available. etc
If you can pick a property based on the reputation of the builder than you're already in a class above most people.
I know you want to believe that a free market fixes all of life's problems but it's really not that simple. For starters even if your ideology worked in practice, you still require a bunch of customers to get burnt initially in order to generate that reputation. However there's also nothing stopping disreputable businesses restarting with a new company name and branding so the reputation model doesn't work in practice (you see this all the time with online sellers eg on Amazon). And that's on top of the former point about how some products are essentials that people don't have the luxury to shop around on.
We have much stricter regulations in Europe and it doesn't harm our commerce. So you absolutely can have a vibrant market and regulations to protect consumers.