U.S. landlords who use RealPage products to set prices on rental apartments are facing accusations of collusion.
  • A group of lawsuits accuse large landlords of price-fixing the market rate of rent in the United States
  • A complaint filed by Washington D.C.’s Attorney General alleges 14 landlords in the district are sharing competitively sensitive data through RealPage, a real estate software provider
  • RealPage recommends prices for roughly 4.5 million housing units in the United States
  • RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions

A group of renters in the U.S. say their landlords are using software to deliver inflated rent hikes.

“We’ve been told as tenants by employees of Equity that the software takes empathy out of the equation. So they can charge whatever the software tells them to charge,” said Kevin Weller, a tenant at Portside Towers since 2021.

Tenants say the management started to increase prices substantially after giving renters concessions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    This right here.

    I live in a very dense city, which means building residential towers is usually the only reasonable way to quickly increase housing density. And we desperately need housing.

    Large buildings can cost billions to build. You need a government or corporation to organize around if you’re going to make that happen. And unless you’re China or the USSR in the 70’s, going the government route is going to be damn near impossible right now.

    Best option is to regulate private industry.

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
      0·
      10 months ago

      Let corporations build them, don’t let them own them.

      If they build a 100 unit apartment building, don’t let the corporation just rent them all out themselves.

      Force them to be sold to individuals. That keeps the overall condo prices competitive, and then people who buy them can then rent them out on an individual basis for those who prefer not to / can’t purchase a condo outright.

      Limit how many residential units a corporation can own and incrementally increase taxes for every unit above that limit.

      Limit how many corporations one person can own. No more of this bullshit 20 numbered companies in one person’s name to get around shitty business practices.

      • fishpen0@lemmy.world
        0·
        10 months ago

        As I stated at the top of the thread, nobody builds condos in cities anymore because they don’t make enough money to beat the market. If I’m rich enough to build a skyscraper it better have better returns than buying an s&p etf. This is the key issue for cities. If you block corporate landlordship, they won’t build condos instead. They will build nothing at all and invest in other stuff.