Housing prices are sky rocketing and if you want a new one built you practically HAVE to do it through them unless you’re in the upper 10% of wealth.
I call that an unfair advantage at the very least. Based on what they’re saying about Las Vegas, it sounds like a similar arrangement has developed in their zoning and development contracts for their suburbia.
Even if there are 1000 bidding players… that’s 1000 people out of the millions living in Las Vegas. Seems pretty unfair no matter how you spin it. There was a time people just bought land and built a house themselves. That time has largely passed.
The construction industry might be considered a cartel though if they coordinate behind the scenes.
In some areas, maybe more like ‘collection of competing cartels that hate each other’.
For the average person, this makes the land and construction costs unobtainable for the average person, effectively creating a monopoly for the builders and the HOA organizations with deep pockets to bid.