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Are you talking about this?: > One advantage RealPage’s data warehouse had was its access to actual lease transactions — giving it the true rents paid, instead

Are you talking about this?: > One advantage RealPage’s data warehouse had was its access to actual lease transactions — giving it the true rents paid, instead of simply those a landlord advertised, RealPage said. The above quote is the most substantive description of info sharing I could find in the section "Who Uses the Software and How It Work" in the article you linked. Is the claim that the secretive info being shared is the actual rents tenants are paying? Are companies and people not normally allowed to share that?

stackskipton 3y ago
>Is the claim that the secretive info being shared is the actual rents tenants are paying? Are companies and people not normally allowed to share that? Companies and people generally do not share this information publicly and most companies consider it extremely proprietary. So yes, that what's these lawsuits are about. All these companies share this extremely sensitive data (Vacancy data, actual rent and length of rental contract) with RealPage, Realpage algorithms use it to price rent.
- hinkley 3y ago
  Another thing the could do with this information is, if one of their customers has to take a bunch of units off the market to refurbish/abate them, it can instantly increase all of the prices for their other customers because it knows the supply just changed.
- jessriedel 3y ago
  I mean, tenants share this info all the time. I'm not aware of them doing it really systematically anywhere, but I doubt there would be objections if they did. Likewise, no one objects when employees share salary info, anonymously or otherwise, even though employees usually treat this as confidential info.
  - stackskipton 3y ago
    And? This is companies with perfect set of data vs some theory crafted world where everyone individually did it perfectly?
    - jessriedel 3y ago
      The point is that we should be clear about what exactly the issue is. "The sellers are telling each other the prices they accepted" is not the issue, because this is allowed and generally considered conducive to efficient markets (even if pricing info in that market has traditionally been treated as proprietary). There's at least three distinct additional features one could point to, and I'm not sure which (or the conjunction?) is supposed to be crucial: (1) That sellers are exchanging pricing information among each other without also revealing that info to buyers. (2) That the shared pricing information is unusually comprehensive. (3) That sellers are tacitly coordinating through the algorithmically suggested prices. As far as I can tell, the legal issue is #3, you are (I think) suggesting the important feature is #2, and my tentative opinion is that #1 is probably the most influential in distorting the market to shift surplus from buyers to sellers.
      - stackskipton 3y ago
        Number 3 is fueled by 2 and assisted by 1. However, forcing 1/2 to be public wouldn't fix the problem here as housing unlike other goods is not 100% competitive market since supply is generally well constrained.
        jessriedel 3y ago
        Forcing prices to be public would of course not keep cartels from being effective. But I claim the most efficient market is where all prices are public and coordination is prohibited, per standard theory (which applies find when supply is fixed).
letmeinhere 3y ago
Yes, actual rents of all units under management, specifics about what properties are vacant, when properties are available to go up for lease renewal or open market, and I imagine also detail on deferred maintenance, to aid in deciding when to renovate which units. Would not be surprised if they take demographic data too. The more you share with RealPage, the better the recommendations you receive, and the higher your unearned income. And no, these are not routinely shared publicly. Landlords are allowed to open their books, but for-profit businesses generally do not do so without specific incentive, because it is more profitable to keep trade secrets. Even if they wanted to, how would they do so? I'm not aware of a nonprofit data hub for them to dump all of this for public consumption (and if I don't know, I'm confident random slumlords in Cincinnati also don't). Maybe RealPage can make a free and open one if they are so committed to just making good honest tools for well-informed market participants. The publicly scrapable data is: advertisements to prospective new tenants for the buildings who have tenants that recently announced their intent to move (or were evicted). They frequently won't even have specific unit numbers attached to them. They only have to be accurate enough to solicit inquiries and not get the landlord sued, an extremely low bar, especially in a hot market (where RealPage reaps its profits). The data availability is night and day.
- jessriedel 3y ago
  Thanks much

stackskipton 3y ago

>Is the claim that the secretive info being shared is the actual rents tenants are paying? Are companies and people not normally allowed to share that? Companies and people generally do not share this information publicly and most companies consider it extremely proprietary. So yes, that what's these lawsuits are about. All these companies share this extremely sensitive data (Vacancy data, actual rent and length of rental contract) with RealPage, Realpage algorithms use it to price rent.

hinkley 3y ago
Another thing the could do with this information is, if one of their customers has to take a bunch of units off the market to refurbish/abate them, it can instantly increase all of the prices for their other customers because it knows the supply just changed.
jessriedel 3y ago
I mean, tenants share this info all the time. I'm not aware of them doing it really systematically anywhere, but I doubt there would be objections if they did. Likewise, no one objects when employees share salary info, anonymously or otherwise, even though employees usually treat this as confidential info.
- stackskipton 3y ago
  And? This is companies with perfect set of data vs some theory crafted world where everyone individually did it perfectly?
  - jessriedel 3y ago
    The point is that we should be clear about what exactly the issue is. "The sellers are telling each other the prices they accepted" is not the issue, because this is allowed and generally considered conducive to efficient markets (even if pricing info in that market has traditionally been treated as proprietary). There's at least three distinct additional features one could point to, and I'm not sure which (or the conjunction?) is supposed to be crucial: (1) That sellers are exchanging pricing information among each other without also revealing that info to buyers. (2) That the shared pricing information is unusually comprehensive. (3) That sellers are tacitly coordinating through the algorithmically suggested prices. As far as I can tell, the legal issue is #3, you are (I think) suggesting the important feature is #2, and my tentative opinion is that #1 is probably the most influential in distorting the market to shift surplus from buyers to sellers.
    - stackskipton 3y ago
      Number 3 is fueled by 2 and assisted by 1. However, forcing 1/2 to be public wouldn't fix the problem here as housing unlike other goods is not 100% competitive market since supply is generally well constrained.
      - jessriedel 3y ago
        Forcing prices to be public would of course not keep cartels from being effective. But I claim the most efficient market is where all prices are public and coordination is prohibited, per standard theory (which applies find when supply is fixed).

letmeinhere 3y ago

Yes, actual rents of all units under management, specifics about what properties are vacant, when properties are available to go up for lease renewal or open market, and I imagine also detail on deferred maintenance, to aid in deciding when to renovate which units. Would not be surprised if they take demographic data too. The more you share with RealPage, the better the recommendations you receive, and the higher your unearned income. And no, these are not routinely shared publicly. Landlords are allowed to open their books, but for-profit businesses generally do not do so without specific incentive, because it is more profitable to keep trade secrets. Even if they wanted to, how would they do so? I'm not aware of a nonprofit data hub for them to dump all of this for public consumption (and if I don't know, I'm confident random slumlords in Cincinnati also don't). Maybe RealPage can make a free and open one if they are so committed to just making good honest tools for well-informed market participants. The publicly scrapable data is: advertisements to prospective new tenants for the buildings who have tenants that recently announced their intent to move (or were evicted). They frequently won't even have specific unit numbers attached to them. They only have to be accurate enough to solicit inquiries and not get the landlord sued, an extremely low bar, especially in a hot market (where RealPage reaps its profits). The data availability is night and day.

jessriedel 3y ago
Thanks much