Agreed. That is indeed what may happen. I'm definitely happy for the federal government to investigate the impact of these algorithms in cities with the fastest

Agreed. That is indeed what may happen. I'm definitely happy for the federal government to investigate the impact of these algorithms in cities with the fastest range of rent growth, however. It makes sense to ban it federally even if it's only really stopping price fixing in one or two cities. To be clear, the million dollar scenario was intended as one in which the landlords collectively lost their minds and plunged themselves into long-term economic doom. In a more realistic pricing scenario, they'd collude to determine the absolute maximum price they could charge and still get tenants. And when you think about it, that's how markets are supposed to work. Landlords want to charge as much as the market can bear, no more, no less. Renters want to pay as little as possible, and in a perfect market, it would reach price equilibrium. But from the federal government's point of view, it's not as simple. Housing must be profitable in order to encourage new investment in housing. We're currently playing musical chairs with too few residential units for too many residents because there hasn't been enough housing investment since the 2008 crash. At the same time, they want to keep rents low, since money spent on rent isn't going into productive areas of the economy. They also want to keep rents variable, because strictly stratifying locations based in income has bad effects in society. (E.g. police officers not being able to afford to live in the large cities they work in.) Retaining the ability for lower-income renters to negotiate rent is helpful in that regard, but obviously not a silver bullet. One thing I would be careful of though, is comparing rental prices to inflation. Housing costs are the single largest factor in the CPI-U, so it's almost a tautology that rents rise at the same rate of inflation, because inflation is largely measuring the rate at which rents rise. Comparing to fed rates is more interesting. If you're getting less of a return on your investment than the current fed rate, you'll make more money by divesting yourself of your properties and putting the money into bonds. (And I believe this is the biggest driver of recent mass layoffs.)