I was disappointed to see this was not about Blackrock and other private equity groups.
A Black rock house company (invintation homes)lied repeatedly about weird smells in my house. whole family has permanent injuries from it.
Please tell us more.
US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent
41–50 of 168 posts
Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent
#42Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> But they aren't banding together.
Sure, just like Uber is "ride sharing" where the drivers pick the price. "We're all just using the same software" is a thin veneer over what amounts to collusion to raise prices.
> There is no mechanism for keeping other landlords from leaving the software, and there are multiple competing alternatives.
The mechanism is "you lose money" (countries can leave OPEC, but it's still a cartel), and if you read the article the competing alternatives are getting bought out.
"In addition, we understand that the Antitrust Division allowed RealPage to acquire one of its closest competitors, Lease Rent Options, in 2017 – one of more than 10 acquisitions RealPage has made since 2016."
It's pretty effective. https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-r...
"The approval allowed RealPage to acquire its only significant competitor, Roper said, adding, 'I was surprised the DOJ let that go through.'"
"In one neighborhood in Seattle, ProPublica found, 70% of apartments were overseen by just 10 property managers, every single one of which used pricing software sold by RealPage."
Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent
#44> pricing algorithms to adjust prices on vacant apartments in real time… The program may also induce landlords to charge the rents recommended by the algorithm, putting upward pressure on prices and decreasing the availability of affordable apartments. Wait until she hears about hotels and flights. > The software analyzes non-public data that RealPage gathers from its property management clients, including confidenti…
Hotels and flights are, granted, less essential than a place to live. Remember, you _have to live somewhere_. That is a functional difference compared to other "market-based" things (never mind that "market-based solutions" are a lot less workable when atomicity is lost. Yeah yeah, regulations making things harder to build, I think more should be built! But there are real, "wanted" things in the way of just having market magic solve everything).
Employers sharing salary information is also maybe a descriptive reality but I don't believe to be necessarily smiled upon. Remember the wage fixing scandals in SV?
Analogies are great because you can say A is like B, up until A is no longer like B and then they are terrible. But seriously, there are qualitative differences in things which make comparable effects be more or less of a problem (or even go from good to bad!). Thinking continuously by analogy misses the forest for the trees.
Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent
#45> “As recently reported, software offered by RealPage uses pricing algorithms to adjust prices on vacant apartments in real time… The program may also induce landlords to charge the rents recommended by the algorithm, putting upward pressure on prices and decreasing the availability of affordable apartments” That’s the meat of it, really. Someone more knowledgeable can speak more confidently, but I’d be pretty surpri…
I can speak about how it actually works, because I live in a building that uses this and has used it since I moved about 2-3 years ago… although it seems like they just recently paused using it (I got my renewal a few days ago).
Every day (or every week or month, up to the property) the rent gets recomputed for every unit for whatever terms you want to offer. My building offers 7, 8, 9, 11, 13 and 14 month terms at the moment (yes, 12-months is surprisingly absent). You get a wide range of rents based on the terms that seemingly don't make sense. That's because it calculates both current market factors as well as what it thinks is in store for the future. So a 9-month term can be either less or more than an 13-month term, because it heavily depends on WHEN that term will end in terms of how hard it anticipates it will be to find a new tenant.
When I first when to move in I was told that the rate quoted would only be good for a week and next week ALL the terms would be different—and they were. It feels like a little bit of a lottery. Wait another week and the rent may go up or down for any of the terms. I did wait an extra week, and then the rent went UP for the 12-month by DOWN for the 13. The rent spread between both terms and time was around $400/mo IIRC, so it was not trivial.
I just got my renewal for this year and my building is no longer using this feature. I can tell because all the terms now have the same (albeit it ridiculous) rate. I'm not sure why my building stopped using it. It may be because of the backlash happening right now, but I actually think it may be because tenant turnover is simply through the roof with this system. Our building is a rotating door. People would move in with a great intro rate, but when it comes around for renewal the rates were VASTLY different, as well as the terms they were mapped to—and you knew that. Why pick a 14-month term when you can pick a 7-month term… and maybe stand to get a lower rent in 7-months? I was always wondering what my options would be on renewal. Sometimes I would check my unit, which despite being rented, I could still see what the "new rate" would be if my renewal was that day. The numbers were always just all over the place. Sometimes the 7 or 8 month lease was the cheapest. Other times it was by far the most expensive. It honestly just felt like there were a bunch of dice rolls every day that determined rent within some range.
Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Without application developers, there would be no Apple App Store. You could come up with a sense in which they're not "banding together" to create the app store, but it wouldn't be convincing.
> There is no mechanism for keeping other landlords from leaving the software
Nobody is saying that landlords are being victimized.
Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 th…
> 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.
Your definition means OPEC isn't a cartel. (That is... incorrect.)
Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent
#48> “As recently reported, software offered by RealPage uses pricing algorithms to adjust prices on vacant apartments in real time… The program may also induce landlords to charge the rents recommended by the algorithm, putting upward pressure on prices and decreasing the availability of affordable apartments” That’s the meat of it, really. Someone more knowledgeable can speak more confidently, but I’d be pretty surpri…
What they did was collude to control supply of lessors by setting rates so there would be less competition. This is the definition of collusion and almost textbook anti-trust. The question for anti-trust cases like this is what was their enforcement mechanism.
Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> But they aren't banding together. Sure, just like Uber is "ride sharing" where the drivers pick the price. "We're all just using the same software" is a thin veneer over what amounts to collusion to raise prices. > There is no mechanism for keeping other landlords from leaving the software, and there are multiple competing alternatives. The mechanism is "you lose money" (countries can leave OPEC, but it's still a c…
Drivers don't pick the price in Uber (Or with traditional taxis), they only signal whether or not they are willing to work. You can't be a driver and undercut other drivers on that platform.
But nothing stops a landlord from undercutting any other landlord. It's the difference between the Uber 'Marketplace' and an actual market.
> The mechanism is "you lose money"
Yes, that's a market mechanism, it's not a cartel mechanism.
Re: US reps urge DOJ to investigate anticompetitive conduct affecting apartment rent
#50How is it not competitive? One raises their rent and the others race to raise theirs as well? Sounds competitive to me.