MariettaEcon

There has been lots of side affects left by hurricane Katrina such as loss of lives, surging gas prices and Wal-Mart reaching its September scores. But there is now a different side affects the soaring real estate prices of land in Baton Rouge, LA. This sudden surge of home buying is due to the facts that since employers are relocating to the capital, so are their employees. Not only that but since children have been transferred to Baton Rouge's local schools, parents are buying houses in those school districts. This surge has created scarce resources for homes in Baton Rouge. Real estate agents are benefiting from this large house demand but there is a trade from this demand. Agents are now working over time to keep up with this supply in demand. A potential downfall of this is that agents could price gouge houses to the highest bidder leaving deserving people homeless. Do you think that real estate agents will take advantage of the situation and price gouge homes? What type of people will be able to afford these now expensive houses? How will this affect the people that will not be able to re-locate with their jobs?