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San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

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Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#11

Post by ToucanLoucan »

davidw wrote: post #10
SoftTalker wrote: post #3

Ignoring the elephant in the room which is that by their own doing the housing supply is woefully inadequate.

Someday, someone is going to do research into the psychology of all this. People will turn to anything besides looking at the lack of housing supply and the local politics that cause that shortage. RealPage! Blackrock! Foreign buyers! Meanwhile, those of us who are involved and actually go to hearings in our cities see the same thing over and over again. Our 'neighbors' fighting to stop housing: https://bendyimby.com…

I mean, 1 in 4 family homes in America is owned by a private equity firm now. That's certainly not helping.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#12

Post by burkaman »

nerdjon wrote: post #7
burkaman wrote: post #2

Here is the law: https://sfgov.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=13157163&GUID=BC... This only bans software that uses "Non-public competitor data" to set rents. You could still sell a product that just scrapes apartment websites to find the average rent in a neighborhood, for example, you just can't blatantly collude with other landlords anymore.

I wonder if they could get around the non-public part if they themselves made the data freely available. If for example, they collected the data from the apartments they manage but the data was available on their site. I don't see anything here (but I only skimmed quickly) that specifically states the source of the data. So basically realizing that it is better that they exist and have this data than to try to spite…

Sure, I think that would be great for everyone. As a renter I would love to have access to more public data to help me negotiate against my landlord's greed.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#14

Post by blackhawkC17 »

People don't like taking responsibility, so they'll blame an external source instead of tackling the underlying issue—the lack of new housing supply.

The same story applies to most booming cities, both in the first world and third world. They'll always blame "greedy landlords," expats, private equity, tourists, and whatever the latest boogeyman is.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#15

Post by lumost »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #11
davidw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someday, someone is going to do research into the psychology of all this. People will turn to anything besides looking at the lack of housing supply and the local politics that cause that shortage. RealPage! Blackrock! Foreign buyers! Meanwhile, those of us who are involved and actually go to hearings in our cities see the same thing over and over again. Our 'neighbors' fighting to stop housing: https://bendyimby.com…

I mean, 1 in 4 family homes in America is owned by a private equity firm now. That's certainly not helping .

It begs the question of how many "neighbors" are actually being neighborly. I'd be surprised if industry groups weren't paying people to attend local-city meetings on their behalf.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#16

Post by blackhawkC17 »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #11
davidw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someday, someone is going to do research into the psychology of all this. People will turn to anything besides looking at the lack of housing supply and the local politics that cause that shortage. RealPage! Blackrock! Foreign buyers! Meanwhile, those of us who are involved and actually go to hearings in our cities see the same thing over and over again. Our 'neighbors' fighting to stop housing: https://bendyimby.com…

I mean, 1 in 4 family homes in America is owned by a private equity firm now. That's certainly not helping .

Source? That seems like the laughable lie that originated from a certain TikToker.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#17

Post by gsk22 »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #11
davidw wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someday, someone is going to do research into the psychology of all this. People will turn to anything besides looking at the lack of housing supply and the local politics that cause that shortage. RealPage! Blackrock! Foreign buyers! Meanwhile, those of us who are involved and actually go to hearings in our cities see the same thing over and over again. Our 'neighbors' fighting to stop housing: https://bendyimby.com…

I mean, 1 in 4 family homes in America is owned by a private equity firm now. That's certainly not helping .

Where are you getting that statistic? I have seen considerably lower numbers.

For example, [1] indicates only 1 in 60 rental homes are owned by private equity. That doesn't even include owner-occupied homes.

[1]: https://ourfinancialsecurity.org/2022/06/letters-to-congress...

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#18

Post by kspacewalk2 »

Eumenes wrote: post #5

Another one to look into banning is appraisal/assessment software. Municipalities pay third parties to get new values for homes, often doubling/tripling residents annual property taxes.

If you publicly decide on your assessment criteria (sqft, pools, #bedrooms, garage size, etc. etc.), and then use software to help you assign the fair assessed value to each property, how is this a problem? Were some homeowners able to use inefficiencies in how assessments are done to fly under the radar with much lower assessments than their property warrants, and then cry foul when their assessments (and property taxes) double or triple in order to make them fair and consistent? If so, that's a tax loophole closed, not an injustice.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#19

Post by Eumenes »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #18
Eumenes wrote: post #5

Another one to look into banning is appraisal/assessment software. Municipalities pay third parties to get new values for homes, often doubling/tripling residents annual property taxes.

If you publicly decide on your assessment criteria (sqft, pools, #bedrooms, garage size, etc. etc.), and then use software to help you assign the fair assessed value to each property, how is this a problem? Were some homeowners able to use inefficiencies in how assessments are done to fly under the radar with much lower assessments than their property warrants, and then cry foul when their assessments (and property t…

Assessments should be done when a home is sold, not based off speculative real estate market. This hurts everyone, esp those on fixed incomes.

Re: San Francisco to Ban Rent-Setting Software Amid Gouging Worry

#20

Post by dmoy »

blackhawkC17 wrote: post #16
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, 1 in 4 family homes in America is owned by a private equity firm now. That's certainly not helping .

Source? That seems like the laughable lie that originated from a certain TikToker.

GP has confused percentage of purchases in some recent year(s) with percentage of ownership. Also conflated "private equity" with all investor-owned homes (which includes a huge chunk of publicly traded REIT stuff too).

Investor-owned in some recent year(s) exceeded 25% of purchases. Private equity was a subset of that.

Overall private equity owns like... 1-1.5% of housing units (which includes a ton of apartments).

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