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Add to this the 3-part RealPage grift: - build a platform that tells landlords, algorithmically, how much they can feasibly afford to raise rents YoY, based on
by chaosharmonic 2y ago
Add to this the 3-part RealPage grift:
- build a platform that tells landlords, algorithmically, how much they can feasibly afford to raise rents YoY, based on what other landlords in their area are charging for similar properties
- write terms of service that require them to use your pricing suggestions most of the time
- target large-scale landlords in big metro areas, to get a lot of market penetration relative to the size of your customer base -- so that when you tell your customers it's based on the behavior of other landlords in your area you actually mean that it's the behavior of their other users, who are also bound to these same terms
I keep losing track of which ones are where, but there have been several price-fixing lawsuits over this -- they range across a couple of AGs, private parties, and I think DoJ
- chaosharmonic 2y agoI should also note that just the first one amounts in practical terms to collusion as a service -- in that what they're ultimately doing is gathering a dataset of pricing data from a bunch of "competing" landlords, who: - are informed that their data is being collected for this - offer it up voluntarily to join the scheme - and are in fact paying them for it