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I see your point, but I think that's a strained interpretation of the following statement:
Most people would understand the phrase "higher cost of red tape" to mean that regulatory requirements have gotten stricter. NOT that regulatory requires have not been sufficiently relaxed.
Indeed, it's worth pointing out that your interpretation could be applied to just about every increase in price of any good or service anywhere in the United States.
For example, suppose the war with Iran heats up and shortly thereafter the price of crude oil (predictably) goes up and shortly after that the price of gasoline (predictably) goes up by some amount. In theory, in response, the United States and various states could relax various regulations regarding the production and distribution of gasoline, which would (predictably) result in gasoline prices going down.
Therefore, under your interpretation, it would be reasonable to attribute the rise in gas prices to "the higher cost of red tape." It would be reasonable to state that the rise in price is due to the government "not responding to new dynamics leading to higher costs." When in reality, most people would state that this hypothetical rise in gas prices was due to the war heating up.
Yes. let's take the hypothetical example that somehow there is a law that the US President must wait X numbers of days before the release of the petroleum reserve. Or let's take your example and add on: the President can't "relax various regulations regarding the production and distribution of gasoline" until Congress has been notified for X number of days. I can reasonably say Trump would have truthed on day 2: "We have got it all worked out and FUEL PRICES WOULD HAVE STAYED LOW, but it's CONGRESS fault for BLOCKING the PRESIDENT with all this RED TAPE. CONGRESS FAILED TO SUPPORT THE TROOPS".
It's why decrying about "red tape" is a really good line to throw in any political election. And honestly, there is a lot of bad laws on the books. Much has already been said about Jones Act or how Jefferson foresaw this and had a letter to Madison discussing having laws that expire every 19 years.
It seems to me that's a different issue. If you want to argue that the rise of housing prices could be ameliorated by reforming some "bad law," fine, but claiming that the rise is the result of the "higher cost of red tape" is meaningless at best and misleading at worst.
Yes, it's fair that I am no longer defending @atelier viewpoint. Theirs sounds like "rules got stricter over time and costs increases" while mine is more "rules didn't change but the costs to follow the rule increases". I was thinking about your examples again and maybe the reason is essentially what moved what.
In the suburb example, the supply stayed the same but demand increased. Obviously demand increases prices, but because it's perfectly inelastic supply prices can go as high as long as demand can meet it. We could, theoretically, calculate the economic rent which is the "excess" purely because of the supply constraint of red tape.
In the oil example, the market is already in equilibrium where supply is very flexible to demand, allowing prices to stay stable as supply is turned on and off (essentially the reverse of "if [oil] prices are going lower, why drill more?"). The war reduced supply and that's the biggest or initial constraint, demand has still remained the same, red tape didn't create the situation because without the war there would be no price shock, so that's why arguments for red tape here is meaningless and/or misleading.
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