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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

#71

Post by skeeter2020 »

cheriot wrote: post #30

> 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…

>> Wait until she hears about hotels and flights.

Or TicketMaster's adaptive pricing! When are these politicans going to focus on society's big problems: getting me Taylor Swift tickets.

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

#72

Post by ceejayoz »

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…

> How is it different from just eyeballing market price from looking at similar units, and renting yours out for +10-15% more?

OPEC works because they all move together. One of them raising or lowering production alone doesn't do much; all of them doing it at similar times does.

Same with RealPage. By having nearly everyone use it, nearly everyone's pricing moves in a coordinated fashion, and they collectively reduce the chances of downward price pressure.

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

#73

Post by calvinmorrison »

jmyeet wrote: post #32
UncleOxidant wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Start punitively taxing second homes; I'm assuming you mean punitively tax 2nd homes that aren't being rented out?

I distinguish between "investment property" and "second homes". An investment property is a working asset that's specifically there to generate income (eg by renting it out). "Second homes" here are really non-working assets (eg the family lake house).

but lake houses and beach houses are seasonal and have little demand year round

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

#74

Post by themagician »

mullingitover wrote: post #64
anonreeeeplor wrote: post #58

Quoted post unavailable.

> The fact Twitter was able to get away with kicking off a US President without any ramifications is frightening. Your stance is the government should be able to compel private businesses to be mouthpieces for government officials ? Seems pretty authoritarian.

Honestly, Twitter kicking off a sitting President was one of the biggest wins for free speech in a long time. I don't know how people don't see that. This kind of public rebuke of the government will _literally_ get you killed in some countries countries. In many more it will get you disappeared at the very least.

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

#75

Post by sangnoir »

cheriot wrote: post #30

> 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…

> Wait until she hears about hotels and flights.

If most/all hotels artificially maintained empty rooms and based their prices exclusively off booking.com or Priceline, I'd want that racket broken apart too.

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

#76

Post by brookst »

cheriot wrote: post #30

> 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…

> Wait until she hears about hotels and flights.

What is the single pricing system that the majority of hotels or flights use? If there is one, and it's used for tacit coordination of prices, then yes, that should be pursued as an illegal cartel as well.

But my understanding was that each airline uses their own yield management algorithms. Delta does not use software that knows about price increases at American before they happen, for instance.

I'd welcome correction if you know otherwise.

> This is identical to how employers share salary information.

Um, no? RealPage actually suggests pricing. They use data from property A to tell property B what to charge. And they (allegedly) coordinate price increases across multiple properties.

This would be like if employers shared salary information and shared a software package that proposed lower and lower pay across all employers.

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

#77

Post by comte7092 »

cheriot wrote: post #30

> 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 discretionary purchases, housing is a necessity.

Regardless, if any of those are shown to be an elaborate price fixing scheme, I would hope that government officials would take action.

I don’t see the need to be so needlessly negative.

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

#78

Post by mlindner »

If this has any contributing effect, it's a minor one, as anyone can offer up housing for rent. The real reason housing is expensive in a couple of places is because of regulations preventing the building of new housing. As extensively seen in places like San Francisco.

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

#79

Post by brookst »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #63
woodruffw wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What comparison between hotels and flights is being missed? I don't know as much about hotel pricing, but my understanding of flight pricing is that it's done with buckets of fare classes: prices are set in buckets, and they only go up (or down) as each bucket is exhausted (or re-opened, if a ticket is canceled). I'm sure it's more complicated than that these days, but I don't think it's directly comparable to the re…

Flight prices are adjusted far more frequently than rental properties. Just get updates on a tracked flight ~6 months from now and watch it change weekly or even daily.

RealPage adjusts rental property pricing daily: https://www.realpage.com/videos/yieldstar-optimizes-rent-pri...

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

#80

Post by HWR_14 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #31
joenot443 wrote: post #5

> “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…

The question I think is interesting. If you replaced an algorithm with a group of people, would a centralized entity recommending rents be price-fixing, just outsourced?

I'm pretty sure that group of people would be guilty of price fixing.
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