Because of rental pricing cartels [1], rent only every goes up in the US. I just got done talking to my landlord, they use this or similar software, not only d

Because of rental pricing cartels [1], rent only every goes up in the US. I just got done talking to my landlord, they use this or similar software, not only did they increase the rent between initial showing/discussions and lease signing based on my income verification results, but I've already been told that there are /no circumstances/ in which rent will ever go down, and that at renewal they cannot negotiate. This is actually blatantly illegal price-fixing, but in the US we have effectively no regulation of how business behave. Because essentially every landlord (most of which are large corporate landlords) in my metro area use this or similar systems, there is no real alternative, so even if I wanted to suck it up and deal with the stress of moving, there is no upside. Renting is a scam in the US, buying a house isn't a scam, but it's ridiculously overpriced currently. Housing in the US is super-fucked currently. [1]: https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-r...