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US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent

klobuchar.senate.gov

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Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent

#11

Post by ceejayoz »

vkou wrote: post #7
colechristensen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m quite happy to see this having lived in apartments driven by automated pricing which is obviously a new kind of cartel.

Is it really a cartel, or is it just landlords squeezing every penny that they can? With there being a lot of pennies to squeeze due to a double-whammy of supply shortages, and growth in wages for the upper 30% of society? If people didn't have spare money, rents wouldn't be growing (As nobody would be able to pay), and if vacancies were higher, landlords would have to accept lowball offers.

Landlords banding together to use one tool to set all the prices sure sounds like a cartel.

Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent

#12

Post by vkou »

timy2shoes wrote: post #10
vkou wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really a cartel, or is it just landlords squeezing every penny that they can? With there being a lot of pennies to squeeze due to a double-whammy of supply shortages, and growth in wages for the upper 30% of society? If people didn't have spare money, rents wouldn't be growing (As nobody would be able to pay), and if vacancies were higher, landlords would have to accept lowball offers.

RealPage is Cartel As A Servics (CAAS), by allowing landlords to collude through a 3rd party to raise rents.

How is it different from just eyeballing market price from looking at similar units, and renting yours out for +10-15% more? Is there some core part of US land policy that only works if landlords behave like low-information market participants?

If these landlords were colluding with eachother to punish defectors that undercut them, that would be a cartel. If they are all reacting to a shortage by raising their prices, that just makes them... Market agents.

Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent

#13

Post by RRWagner »

vkou wrote: post #7
colechristensen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m quite happy to see this having lived in apartments driven by automated pricing which is obviously a new kind of cartel.

Is it really a cartel, or is it just landlords squeezing every penny that they can? With there being a lot of pennies to squeeze due to a double-whammy of supply shortages, and growth in wages for the upper 30% of society? If people didn't have spare money, rents wouldn't be growing (As nobody would be able to pay), and if vacancies were higher, landlords would have to accept lowball offers.

>> growth in wages for the upper 30% of society...

Which just means that the 1% can then extract as much of that 30% as possible returning the 29% right back tonwhere they effectively were before the growth (not to mention anyone that got a minimum wage increase)

Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent

#14

Post by gonzo41 »

vkou wrote: post #7
colechristensen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m quite happy to see this having lived in apartments driven by automated pricing which is obviously a new kind of cartel.

Is it really a cartel, or is it just landlords squeezing every penny that they can? With there being a lot of pennies to squeeze due to a double-whammy of supply shortages, and growth in wages for the upper 30% of society? If people didn't have spare money, rents wouldn't be growing (As nobody would be able to pay), and if vacancies were higher, landlords would have to accept lowball offers.

This is not true. I encourage you to listen to this two part pod cast about this issue. Robert Evans goes into depth about this. Part one https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236... Part Two https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...

Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent

#15

Post by prpl »

vkou wrote: post #7
colechristensen wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m quite happy to see this having lived in apartments driven by automated pricing which is obviously a new kind of cartel.

Is it really a cartel, or is it just landlords squeezing every penny that they can? With there being a lot of pennies to squeeze due to a double-whammy of supply shortages, and growth in wages for the upper 30% of society? If people didn't have spare money, rents wouldn't be growing (As nobody would be able to pay), and if vacancies were higher, landlords would have to accept lowball offers.

Either way it's price coordination, which is illegal.

Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent

#16

Post by alistairSH »

vkou wrote: post #12
timy2shoes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RealPage is Cartel As A Servics (CAAS), by allowing landlords to collude through a 3rd party to raise rents.

How is it different from just eyeballing market price from looking at similar units, and renting yours out for +10-15% more? Is there some core part of US land policy that only works if landlords behave like low-information market participants? If these landlords were colluding with eachother to punish defectors that undercut them, that would be a cartel. If they are all reacting to a shortage by raising their prices…

Unless I’m missing something, it isn’t any different, other than it makes the market more efficient (in that the price gets set “correctly” earlier - by the manual method, a landlord likely over-prices initially and waits for a tenant OR underprices initially and loses that income).

It’s just in a broken market - there isn’t enough supply of housing, so prices are going up. And because everybody needs housing, it feels icky to many people (I’m one of them, but my solution would be relax zoning and allow more housing).

Unless using this system requires participants to set a price, I’m not sure it meets the definition of price fixing. A landlord can still underprice to guarantee a tenant quickly. Or overprice in the hopes they catch a low-info, high-income tenant.

Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent

#19

Post by vkou »

ceejayoz wrote: post #11
vkou wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really a cartel, or is it just landlords squeezing every penny that they can? With there being a lot of pennies to squeeze due to a double-whammy of supply shortages, and growth in wages for the upper 30% of society? If people didn't have spare money, rents wouldn't be growing (As nobody would be able to pay), and if vacancies were higher, landlords would have to accept lowball offers.

Landlords banding together to use one tool to set all the prices sure sounds like a cartel.

Does this cartel punish defectors? How can it prevent people who don't want to participate from undercutting it?

It doesn't, and it can't. That's what makes it not a cartel.

The problem is not collusion, the problem is supply shortage. All the sellers raising prices isn't illegal, or cartel-like. All the sellers punishing a seller that lowers prices would be - but it doesn't happen. Not with landlords, at least.

I think our current land policy is pants-on-head stupid, but this isn't the problem with it.

Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent

#20

Post by missedthecue »

ceejayoz wrote: post #11
vkou wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really a cartel, or is it just landlords squeezing every penny that they can? With there being a lot of pennies to squeeze due to a double-whammy of supply shortages, and growth in wages for the upper 30% of society? If people didn't have spare money, rents wouldn't be growing (As nobody would be able to pay), and if vacancies were higher, landlords would have to accept lowball offers.

Landlords banding together to use one tool to set all the prices sure sounds like a cartel.

But they aren't banding together. That's like saying devs are banding together to publish apps on the Apple App Store.

There is no mechanism for keeping other landlords from leaving the software, and there are multiple competing alternatives.

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