4 ms·

The thing I don't understand in all this is how on earth are rents secret? I mean, can't a landlord fix prices just by looking at nearby rental listings and mat

The thing I don't understand in all this is how on earth are rents secret? I mean, can't a landlord fix prices just by looking at nearby rental listings and matching? Are there certain key details that that the software and its back-end can share that enable price fixing better than open listings? If tenants were hard to get, looking at nearby listings would motivate the landlord to go cheaper. (I do understand that the platform in question encourages compliance with the recommended pricing.) When the market conditions favor landlords, they have no reason to compete, though, no matter how they get wind of prices. (Oh, but, wow! San Francisco is really socking it to the housing problem here with this ban they are seeking, yay!)

natbennett 2y ago
This is all publicly available information but: Advertise prices are not the actual prices that people are actually paying. RealPage doesn’t just show the prices of other apartments around you. It gives a recommendation for what you should price your listings. The heart of the price fixing claim here is that this price is higher than landlords would select on their own.
- kazinator 2y ago
  The thing is, that if, say, 10,000 landlords had to vie for 1,000 renters, no application would help them set high prices. Nobody would stick to its recommendations, while would-be renters are not calling. They would say, screw that, and set a low price to try to attract the renter away from the next landlord. Price fixing can only exist in an oligopoly (which becomes a virtual monpoly by getting together and fixing). There are too many landlords to comprise an oligopoly. If some of then plug into an app, that doesn't make them into an oligopoly. This is all just scapegoating for deeper problems in the actual housing market. Rents are mainly high because of supply and demand. Actually another thing is that landlords trying to set the highest possible price are being counterproductive. High rents tend to attract undesirable tenants. What you want as a landlord is not to extract the highest rent, but to find a great tenant. A great tenant isn't the one who can pay the top dollar. It's one who doesn't cause trouble or damage, and doesn't go into arrears on their rent. (Plus other attributes, like not complaining about every minor thing.) How I know this is that over 30 years ago, I did IT work and materials preparation work for a real estate guru who taught seminars. He was a one man operation and hired me part time. In banging up the course materials, I picked up a thing or two. Here is an article I just found about this topic: https://www.landlordtalking.com/tips/tenant-screening/landlords-beware-this-policy-repels-good-tenants/ https://www.landlordtalking.com/tips/tenant-screening/landlo...

natbennett 2y ago

This is all publicly available information but: Advertise prices are not the actual prices that people are actually paying. RealPage doesn’t just show the prices of other apartments around you. It gives a recommendation for what you should price your listings. The heart of the price fixing claim here is that this price is higher than landlords would select on their own.

kazinator 2y ago
The thing is, that if, say, 10,000 landlords had to vie for 1,000 renters, no application would help them set high prices. Nobody would stick to its recommendations, while would-be renters are not calling. They would say, screw that, and set a low price to try to attract the renter away from the next landlord. Price fixing can only exist in an oligopoly (which becomes a virtual monpoly by getting together and fixing). There are too many landlords to comprise an oligopoly. If some of then plug into an app, that doesn't make them into an oligopoly. This is all just scapegoating for deeper problems in the actual housing market. Rents are mainly high because of supply and demand. Actually another thing is that landlords trying to set the highest possible price are being counterproductive. High rents tend to attract undesirable tenants. What you want as a landlord is not to extract the highest rent, but to find a great tenant. A great tenant isn't the one who can pay the top dollar. It's one who doesn't cause trouble or damage, and doesn't go into arrears on their rent. (Plus other attributes, like not complaining about every minor thing.) How I know this is that over 30 years ago, I did IT work and materials preparation work for a real estate guru who taught seminars. He was a one man operation and hired me part time. In banging up the course materials, I picked up a thing or two. Here is an article I just found about this topic: https://www.landlordtalking.com/tips/tenant-screening/landlords-beware-this-policy-repels-good-tenants/ https://www.landlordtalking.com/tips/tenant-screening/landlo...