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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

#131

Post by landemva »

Aunche wrote: post #100
rtpg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ma…

A place to live is a market based thing. There's no real difference between what RealPage is doing with housing, and what the CME Group is doing with crops. They both facilitate price discovery. The CME also is helping farmers maximize their profits. The difference is that farmers are allowed to grow as much crops as they want (perhaps a little too much in drought-prone areas), so food prices grow much more reasonabl…

CME provides a place to trade futures products, which producers use to hedge risk. That is not like the apartment rent collusion.

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

#132

Post by effingwewt »

nxm wrote: post #95
vwoolf wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone should do something really wild and tell Congress about how local municipalities restrict the supply of housing, which raises prices. This allows owners of said real estate to extract very high rents, while limiting effective competition, harming consumers. It's wild! The DoJ should start with an antitrust investigation of Atherton.

Or preserve the character of their neighborhood. Not everyone wants to be surrounded by 4 story buildings

People needing shelter to live trumps your selfish desire to not have poor people near you.

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

#133

Post by pandaman »

ceejayoz wrote: post #128
pandaman wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>independent contractors are supposed to set their own rates I am missing this point. Uber drivers can set their rates and not take the rides that are below those rates, can't they? Or do you mean they have to be able to make exactly the rate they set, e.g. the driver's rate is $21.25/h, Uber offers only $30/h and more and the driver takes Uber to court saying he could not set his desirable rate and had been paid mor…

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe... > You are not an independent contractor if you perform services that can be controlled by an employer (what will be done and how it will be done). This applies even if you are given freedom of action. What matters is that the employer has the legal right to control the details of how the services are performed. It's a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction battle…

I have not found anything about the rate on the page you linked. There might be some other considerations in the case of Uber drivers but I specifically asked about the point you had been making about the rate.

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

#134

Post by Aunche »

landemva wrote: post #131
Aunche wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A place to live is a market based thing. There's no real difference between what RealPage is doing with housing, and what the CME Group is doing with crops. They both facilitate price discovery. The CME also is helping farmers maximize their profits. The difference is that farmers are allowed to grow as much crops as they want (perhaps a little too much in drought-prone areas), so food prices grow much more reasonabl…

CME provides a place to trade futures products, which producers use to hedge risk. That is not like the apartment rent collusion.

The CME facilitates price discovery with derivatives. RealPage facilitates price discovery with data science.

If they are really facilitating collusion, then they would be selling a broken product. For example, for simplicity's sake, let's say that a city has a lot of landlords, but all their units are identical and they all follow the RealPage algorithm for price suggestions. Realpage suggests that they charge an exorbitant $10000 per unit, which leads to only 50% of all units being occupied, so your expected value of $5000 per unit. However, if you're a landlord, you'd be better off renting your units at $9000, leading to 90% occupancy. Your expected profit per unit is $8100, so you're actually much better off without the algorithm.

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

#135

Post by mikebenfield »

mihaic wrote: post #98
mikebenfield wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand this perspective. Are you really confident those measures will increase supply? I’m not. I find it really hard to predict what the outcome of any of those measures would be. How about this one: 4. Stop artificially restricting the goddamn housing supply and catering NIMBYs, and instead allow housing of reasonable quantity and density to be built.

While NIMBY might be a cause in some parts of the US, absurd increases in housing costs are happening worldwide, in all kinds of markets. The only way for housing to become affordable is to have homeowners take a hit in their valuation, every other solution is ultimately futile.

Yeah… so are you implying that the solutions proposed by the other post - like punitively taxing second homes - are more universal solutions to the housing crisis than building more housing?

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

#136

Post by landemva »

Aunche wrote: post #134
landemva wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CME provides a place to trade futures products, which producers use to hedge risk. That is not like the apartment rent collusion.

The CME facilitates price discovery with derivatives. RealPage facilitates price discovery with data science. If they are really facilitating collusion, then they would be selling a broken product. For example, for simplicity's sake, let's say that a city has a lot of landlords, but all their units are identical and they all follow the RealPage algorithm for price suggestions. Realpage suggests that they charge an ex…

Futures products allow producers to offload some of their risk. CME provides a regulated transparent place to trade those products.

While I was a small-time landlord in the past, I am not now. It is difficult (financing, zoning, permits) to put up a new apartment building, so there is no extra $8100 for me.

If landlords meet weekly at the diner to set unit pricing it would be anti-trust collusion. The landlords paying uncle Bob to do the same thing is an extra step and it is still collusion.

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

#137

Post by Aunche »

landemva wrote: post #136
Aunche wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CME facilitates price discovery with derivatives. RealPage facilitates price discovery with data science. If they are really facilitating collusion, then they would be selling a broken product. For example, for simplicity's sake, let's say that a city has a lot of landlords, but all their units are identical and they all follow the RealPage algorithm for price suggestions. Realpage suggests that they charge an ex…

Futures products allow producers to offload some of their risk. CME provides a regulated transparent place to trade those products. While I was a small-time landlord in the past, I am not now. It is difficult (financing, zoning, permits) to put up a new apartment building, so there is no extra $8100 for me. If landlords meet weekly at the diner to set unit pricing it would be anti-trust collusion. The landlords payin…

>The landlords paying uncle Bob to do the same thing is an extra step and it is still collusion.

Did you read my example? My point is that this not what they're doing. You pay Realpage a fee based on the total square footage of units you want to be priced. In exchange, they estimate the market rent of your apartment to the best of their ability. They have no incentive to do otherwise.

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

#139

Post by munk-a »

asdff wrote: post #107
rtpg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ma…

Hardly anyone says "I have $200, where can I fly." Usually its "I have to go to X for y reasons, X is already booked and paid for, lets get a flight" at which point you are extorted by the dynamic price model for a flight you must take. It's somewhat hilarious when Spirit in particular overbooks, and tries to offer you money to take a flight some other day, assuming you can just rearrange everything in your life arou…

waves hand I've done that - especially when going to Europe I just try and get near my destination then like to get the rest of the way by train. It's nice as I get to see an extra city for a day or two.

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

#140

Post by treeman79 »

turtleyacht wrote: post #41
treeman79 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Natural gas + carbon monoxide, oddly didn’t have the rotten egg smell.

When we previewed home all the windows were open. After signing paperwork we closed up windows. Hour later we noticed smell. 3 month of being told it was carpet. Floor, paint. They inspecting and saying everything is fine.

Our deductive reasoning skills where nil fairly quick into this.

Finally called gas company even. They started screaming for us to run From the road. Didn’t even get to the house before alarms went off. Kids went from gifted to special needs. I went from top programmer to taking hours to figure out laundry.

Doctors wouldn’t say gas caused injuries. So lawyers didn’t care.

About 70% Back to normal 4 years later.

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