Market competition is essential for a functioning market. Eliminating software whose purpose is to prevent the market from competing on price is a huge win.
We won't miss them.
DOJ sues realpage for algorithmic pricing scheme that harms renters
301–310 of 646 posts
Re: DOJ sues realpage for algorithmic pricing scheme that harms renters
#302[flagged]
We are talking about the program that deliberately advises leaving apartments empty to decrease supply and increase rents?
For would be tenants the choice is paying through the nose, or homelessness. The option to delay homelessness by getting stuck in a debt trap does not make it tenant friendly.
Re: DOJ sues realpage for algorithmic pricing scheme that harms renters
#303Curious where the line is supposed to be for gathering market information and making pricing decisions. Surely it would be legal if I had an employee scour all the rental listings in my area and use that to give me price distributions for similar units to the ones I’m advertising. But according to the DOJ if I hire a company to do this, it’s not? What if I have two units to list and it wouldn’t make sense for me to h…
It seems to me like there are two significant factors in this case which likely cross the line: using private information from competitors (inventory, actual current prices) and clients being penalized for not sticking to the recommended prices. The latter (enforcement of cartel pricing decisions) makes the former more effective, and seem particularly egregious.
I would agree that having a price enforcement mechanism crosses the line, but I can’t find evidence that they do.
Re: DOJ sues realpage for algorithmic pricing scheme that harms renters
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh, you're reading the wrong thing about it. Fixing supply and demand means things like punishing vacancies with taxation, promoting construction with tax breaks, and removing the demand by severely limiting rent seeking real estate investors.
And promoting construction by making it legal to build housing. Probably the biggest, most direct action that could be taken.
Amen.
Re: DOJ sues realpage for algorithmic pricing scheme that harms renters
#305Curious where the line is supposed to be for gathering market information and making pricing decisions. Surely it would be legal if I had an employee scour all the rental listings in my area and use that to give me price distributions for similar units to the ones I’m advertising. But according to the DOJ if I hire a company to do this, it’s not? What if I have two units to list and it wouldn’t make sense for me to h…
That's not what RealPage did. RealPage (in landlord's terms) "uses proprietary data from other subscribers to suggest rents and term"—not just publicly available data. Additionally, there's a market impact level to this. When you control 70% of the market, you're a monopoly, regardless of whether you're controlling market prices because you're a landlord or because you're just telling the landlord what price to use.…
They also (as I understand it) have landlords sign an agreement that they will charge RealPage's suggested rent and not undercut it. This is the collusion part. It's not just a market research service, they are manipulating prices.
Re: DOJ sues realpage for algorithmic pricing scheme that harms renters
#306I am excited and optimistic that we appear to be applying economic principles to housing! Now that we're getting rid of centralized price controls / collusion, next can we do supply/demand?
I live in a town where all the officials express politically popular laments about the affordability of housing, but every time a developer wants to build apartments or tear down some old run-down post-war cookie-cutter houses for modern duplexs or tri-levels these same officials run them through a gauntlet of demands and then often as not end up denying the permits. They say they want dense, walkable, core neighborh…
> I live in a town where all the officials express politically popular laments about the affordability of housing, but every time a developer wants to build apartments or tear down some old run-down post-war cookie-cutter houses for modern duplexs or tri-levels these same officials run them through a gauntlet of demands and then often as not end up denying the permits.
Hah, in my town, the developers and officials are all best friends, posts all over Facebook, going to each other's kids soccer and football games, going on vacation together, going out fishing together...
Re: DOJ sues realpage for algorithmic pricing scheme that harms renters
#307I am excited and optimistic that we appear to be applying economic principles to housing! Now that we're getting rid of centralized price controls / collusion, next can we do supply/demand?
On the demand side it would be nice to keep PE firms from hoovering up all the single family homes. https://www.thesling.org/are-hedge-funds-and-private-equity-...
While we are at it, make it easier for mom-and-pop landlords to rent out their homes so that they can compete with the resources of PE firms. Too many renter protections where I live and the consensus is don't ever try to be a landlord here. One bad tenant/squatter can bankrupt you.
Re: DOJ sues realpage for algorithmic pricing scheme that harms renters
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
All they have to do is offer the owner an adequate price.
The problem is they can't give the owner an adequate price when they're paying for the owner to grow more equity in the property while also needing to save at a faster rate to afford a downpayment on a mortgage.
Then they are renting something they can't afford, if ownership is their goal.
When I was saving for my first house I lived in a crappy little 1 bedroom apartment for a few years so that I could get a down payment together. I had the income to afford renting a larger apartment or a house in a nicer area but I would not have been able to save anything.
Re: DOJ sues realpage for algorithmic pricing scheme that harms renters
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the demand side it would be nice to keep PE firms from hoovering up all the single family homes. https://www.thesling.org/are-hedge-funds-and-private-equity-...
You can't just ban them. Where there is profit to be made, they will find a way around any regulation. You have to change the structure of the market so they no longer see these investments as profitable. One way local areas do this is by "homestead tax exemption" which reduces property taxes if you live in your own home, but this is binary and punishes small landlords equally as big ones.
It has to be binary, doesn't it? If it's some sort of progressive scheme with tax brackets based on number of properties owned then PE will find a way to structure their holdings so that each legal entity only owns a single property. The only way to prevent that is to mandate that the owner of the property be an individual (not a business or trust) who resides on that property for more than 183 days per year.
Re: DOJ sues realpage for algorithmic pricing scheme that harms renters
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the demand side it would be nice to keep PE firms from hoovering up all the single family homes. https://www.thesling.org/are-hedge-funds-and-private-equity-...
You do that by building enough houses to make housing unattractive to investment firms
There is never enough houses, or they are located in the middle of nowhere thousand of kilometers from nearest subway station or supermarket.