We get why it feels that way, but a high list price isn't gouging. Price gouging laws exist for genuine necessities in an emergency, the hand-sanitizer-during-a-pandemic situation, where people have an urgent, unavoidable need. Nobody is forced to buy a particular house. You can rent, stay put, or wait, so the coercion those laws target is missing. Housing also has a built-in check that emergency goods lack: the market itself. A seller can list at any number they want, but list price and value are two different things. Value is whatever a willing buyer will actually pay. - Priced above what buyers will bear? The home sits, and the price comes down. - Buyers compete and pay it? Then that was the market value all along. A homeowner has no obligation to underprice out of altruism just because supply is tight, any more than you'd be obligated to accept a lowball offer on your own place. We've lived the buyer side of this. We once bid on a one-of-a-kind home still in original 1970s condition that needed a full remodel. It listed at a genuinely reasonable price, drew a dozen offers, and sold on the order of $70,000 over asking. That was a dozen buyers telling the market what the home was worth. The asking number is an opening bid. Demand sets the real price.