US Senator Seeks Antitrust Review of Apartment Price-setting Software

[ruet]

Source: Ars Technica

The chair of a U.S. Senate committee asked the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday to review whether a Texas-based property tech company’s rent-setting software violates antitrust laws.

The move comes after ProPublica published an investigation on October 15 into RealPage’s pricing software, which suggests new rents daily to landlords for all available units in a building. Critics say the software may be helping big landlords operate as a cartel to push rents above competitive levels in some markets.

“Alarmingly, recent reporting by ProPublica highlighted that RealPage’s algorithm-based price optimization software, YieldStar, is being used by a growing number of property managers and landlords, potentially impacting pricing and the supply of homes in the rental market,” said the letter signed by US Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. “Renters should have the power to negotiate fairly priced housing, free from illicit collusion and deceptive pricing techniques.”

RealPage’s software applies a complex set of mathematical rules to a vast trove of data collected by the company from landlords who are its clients. That data includes the otherwise private data of nearby competitors.

Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/us-senator-seeks-antitrust-review-of-apartment-price-setting-software/

[Lonestarblue]

1. Perhaps that's why rents in some Texas cities have increased so much.

Cities like Austin have become unaffordable, forcing people to move further and further out of the city. That just dds costs and commuting time for those who need to work in or around the city. Public transportation includes a bus network, a very limited light rail route, and that’s all. The oil magnates who actually run the state want it that way—more growth, more cars, more gas used to fuel their profits.

[TexasBushwhacker]

3. Same in Houston

Rents going up up up, but lots of vacancies. I just don't get it.

[Ford_Prefect]

2. This is MAJOR fraud. There is NO possible way the property I'm writing from has tripled in value

in less than 10 years. Similarly there is no possible measure which could explain the same increase in rents in the region.