7 ms·

Algorithmic rent-pricing litigation expands under new state and local laws

105 points by toomuchtodo 2mo ago

hiddencost 2mo ago
Do car dealerships next...
toomuchtodo 2mo ago
From https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-time-bandits-and https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-time-ba... > Our work against algorithmic rent-fixing is starting to bear real fruit. Multiple cities have passed laws prohibiting corporate landlords from using rent-fixing software, including San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Providence, RI. These laws aren’t complex and don’t require unwieldy market definition, you just have to show that the defendant is using nonpublic information in an algorithm to set prices. And they are being enforced, with six different lawsuits now pending.
- demibabs 2mo ago
  Can you elaborate on what is meant by “rent-fixing”?
  - hiddencost 2mo ago
    Like "price fixing". Landlords illegally colluding to artificially inflate the price of housing.
  - CharlesW 2mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing#:~:text=Rent%20algorithm,of%202024.%5B37%5D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing#:~:text=Rent%20al...
  - arrosenberg 2mo ago
    A bunch of landlords all use the same software to tell them how to price rents. The software continually pushes prices higher and higher. The software requires landlords to use their pricing as a condition of use. Now you have a price-fixing cartel for rent.
    - FireBeyond 2mo ago
      And those corporations can decide that they'd rather the apartment sit vacant than be rented at below exactly what they'd like to get for it, bolstered in part by the fact they can claim the non-occupancy as a loss on their taxes.
  - washadjeffmad 2mo ago
    https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20252026/234445 https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20252026/2... See Section 3
- boredatoms 2mo ago
  Will they just stop using an ‘algorithm’ and have a mathematician sit there and state numbers that are of unknown origin?
aorloff 2mo ago
In the People's Republic of Berkeley, our City Council patted themselves on the back in March 2025 when they passed similar laws. Then they got sued by the company that was targeted, and immediately waffled and canceled the ban. What's insane about all of this is that we also have Rent Control. There is no greater price fixing mechanism than Rent Control. Rent Control ensures that all landlords must seek the highest possible rent, because they are (potentially) tethered to it for life (of the tenant). So if you create an economic system where sellers never will allow prices to go down, why bother banning price fixing -- its practically baked into the housing code.
- Chinjut 2mo ago
  Why would landlords not seek the highest possible rent without rent control?
  - sophrosyne42 2mo ago
    They would. But second order effects ensure that this very act leads to the decline of housing prices. These effects being eliminated by rent control makes it the premier anti-tenant policy.
    - dataflow 2mo ago
      What second-order effects...? Feels like such an oddly opqaue way to talk about them. And how do you ignore the effect of the fact that rent no longer rises during the life of the tenant, making it lower after a while than it would otherwise be...? (How) is it so obvious that that is dwarfed by the second-order effects of uncontrolled rent that it doesn't even warrant a mention? Because it isn't to me.
      - Aurornis 2mo ago
        > And how do you ignore the effect of the fact that rent no longer rises during the life of the tenant, Rent control schemes don’t work like this, except in completely broken policies. Landlords are given an allowance for rent control increases year over year. The point is that they basically have to take the maximum allowed every year to avoid getting stuck.
nativeit 2mo ago
I’d imagine it’s not so simple, especially without a functional legislative branch, but we could really use a “digital bill of rights” that could provide a comprehensive set of baseline protections and standards for things like this, online privacy, data protection, whatever stops Meta/X/et al from being maximally harmful, etc..
ElProlactin 2mo ago
Sadly, you can not legislate a culture of decency.
yonran 2mo ago
In San Francisco, I’m not a fan of Aaron Peskin’s ban on algorithmic rent-setting (Admin Code 37.10C https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/san_francisco/latest/sf_admin/0-0-0-70856 https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/san_francisco/latest/s...) (which is probably similar to the other cities) because 1) it goes beyond antitrust law in just banning data gathering for no good reason, and 2) it rewards bounty hunters. 1. It goes beyond antitrust guidelines by banning rent prediction using any “non-public competitor data”, which is stricter than the former antitrust guidelines which prohibited sharing “competitively sensitive variables” (https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/dealings-competitors/ftcdojguidelines.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/dealings...). To the extent that it differs from banning competitively sensitive data, it is just banning the use of data to make rentals more efficient. If landlords are pricing accurately but not monopolistically, this should reduce turnover, reduce vacancy, and reduce the occasions where a listing gets a crowd of applicants, which is good for both landlord and tenant. It’s bad to try to ban accurate data. 2. It provides a private right of action for tenants and nonprofits to sue, just like Proposition 65 (Known by the State of California to cause cancer) incentivizes bounty hunters to sue. The point seems to be to punish landlords more than it is to establish fair rules. And it seems that these lawsuits are just piggybacking on the DOJ settlement by punishing anyone who uses RealPage as soon as the ordinance becomes effective in 30 days while RealPage was already working to settle federally. The complaints (e.g. the SF one https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73573242/gomez-v-greystar-management-services-llc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73573242/gomez-v-greyst...) don’t have any new violations; just companies who are already settling. I don’t think that’s justice for a city to frontrun the federal settlement with new violations for the same program.
- crooked-v 2mo ago
  SF as a city has the fundamental problem that there's a huge part of the electorate will blame the housing shortage on absolutely anything they can find that's not the actual fundamental physical shortage of housing. That leads to an endless tangle of local laws and organizations supposedly trying to "do something about it", that are fundamentally just making the problem worse by adding marginal cost to every new already-difficult-to-pencil housing unit.
WalterBright 2mo ago
Governments are always unsuccessfully trying to repeal the Law of Supply and Demand. They've been trying to do it for the last 4,000 years. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1610161408/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/1610161408/
- socialest 2mo ago
  Except by creating supply, like socialist run countries do by building social housing.
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    They generally become expensive slums. Including the slums in America built by the government.
- hackable_sand 2mo ago
  Helium tanks famously represent the Law of Gravity.
- FireBeyond 2mo ago
  Well, governments have successfully enabled wealth disparity to the point where corporations are buying up several tens of thousands of homes. Maybe free range capitalism isn't the amazing utopia it's cracked up to be?
  - WalterBright 2mo ago
    1. There are 90 million single family homes in the US 2. If you want to live in a house, but for less than 5 years, it is better to rent 3. If corporations really want to buy all the houses, there's a business opportunity for you. Build houses and sell them to the corporations at exorbitant prices. 4. Nobody is making anybody sell their home to a corporation. 5. Renting out homes does not reduce the supply of housing. 6. Homes are crummy investments. Capitalist countries are indeed quite amazing compared to socialist countries. That's why people flee socialist countries and try to get in the US.

105 points by toomuchtodo 2mo ago

Do car dealerships next...

From https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-time-bandits-and https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-time-ba... > Our work against algorithmic rent-fixing is starting to bear real fruit. Multiple cities have passed laws prohibiting corporate landlords from using rent-fixing software, including San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Philadelphia, and Providence, RI. These laws aren’t complex and don’t require unwieldy market definition, you just have to show that the defendant is using nonpublic information in an algorithm to set prices. And they are being enforced, with six different lawsuits now pending.

demibabs 2mo ago
Can you elaborate on what is meant by “rent-fixing”?
- hiddencost 2mo ago
  Like "price fixing". Landlords illegally colluding to artificially inflate the price of housing.
- CharlesW 2mo ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing#:~:text=Rent%20algorithm,of%202024.%5B37%5D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing#:~:text=Rent%20al...
- arrosenberg 2mo ago
  A bunch of landlords all use the same software to tell them how to price rents. The software continually pushes prices higher and higher. The software requires landlords to use their pricing as a condition of use. Now you have a price-fixing cartel for rent.
  - FireBeyond 2mo ago
    And those corporations can decide that they'd rather the apartment sit vacant than be rented at below exactly what they'd like to get for it, bolstered in part by the fact they can claim the non-occupancy as a loss on their taxes.
- washadjeffmad 2mo ago
  https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20252026/234445 https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20252026/2... See Section 3
boredatoms 2mo ago
Will they just stop using an ‘algorithm’ and have a mathematician sit there and state numbers that are of unknown origin?

aorloff 2mo ago

In the People's Republic of Berkeley, our City Council patted themselves on the back in March 2025 when they passed similar laws. Then they got sued by the company that was targeted, and immediately waffled and canceled the ban. What's insane about all of this is that we also have Rent Control. There is no greater price fixing mechanism than Rent Control. Rent Control ensures that all landlords must seek the highest possible rent, because they are (potentially) tethered to it for life (of the tenant). So if you create an economic system where sellers never will allow prices to go down, why bother banning price fixing -- its practically baked into the housing code.

Chinjut 2mo ago
Why would landlords not seek the highest possible rent without rent control?
- sophrosyne42 2mo ago
  They would. But second order effects ensure that this very act leads to the decline of housing prices. These effects being eliminated by rent control makes it the premier anti-tenant policy.
  - dataflow 2mo ago
    What second-order effects...? Feels like such an oddly opqaue way to talk about them. And how do you ignore the effect of the fact that rent no longer rises during the life of the tenant, making it lower after a while than it would otherwise be...? (How) is it so obvious that that is dwarfed by the second-order effects of uncontrolled rent that it doesn't even warrant a mention? Because it isn't to me.
    - Aurornis 2mo ago
      > And how do you ignore the effect of the fact that rent no longer rises during the life of the tenant, Rent control schemes don’t work like this, except in completely broken policies. Landlords are given an allowance for rent control increases year over year. The point is that they basically have to take the maximum allowed every year to avoid getting stuck.

nativeit 2mo ago

I’d imagine it’s not so simple, especially without a functional legislative branch, but we could really use a “digital bill of rights” that could provide a comprehensive set of baseline protections and standards for things like this, online privacy, data protection, whatever stops Meta/X/et al from being maximally harmful, etc..

ElProlactin 2mo ago

Sadly, you can not legislate a culture of decency.

yonran 2mo ago

In San Francisco, I’m not a fan of Aaron Peskin’s ban on algorithmic rent-setting (Admin Code 37.10C https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/san_francisco/latest/sf_admin/0-0-0-70856 https://codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/san_francisco/latest/s...) (which is probably similar to the other cities) because 1) it goes beyond antitrust law in just banning data gathering for no good reason, and 2) it rewards bounty hunters. 1. It goes beyond antitrust guidelines by banning rent prediction using any “non-public competitor data”, which is stricter than the former antitrust guidelines which prohibited sharing “competitively sensitive variables” (https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/dealings-competitors/ftcdojguidelines.pdf https://www.ftc.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/dealings...). To the extent that it differs from banning competitively sensitive data, it is just banning the use of data to make rentals more efficient. If landlords are pricing accurately but not monopolistically, this should reduce turnover, reduce vacancy, and reduce the occasions where a listing gets a crowd of applicants, which is good for both landlord and tenant. It’s bad to try to ban accurate data. 2. It provides a private right of action for tenants and nonprofits to sue, just like Proposition 65 (Known by the State of California to cause cancer) incentivizes bounty hunters to sue. The point seems to be to punish landlords more than it is to establish fair rules. And it seems that these lawsuits are just piggybacking on the DOJ settlement by punishing anyone who uses RealPage as soon as the ordinance becomes effective in 30 days while RealPage was already working to settle federally. The complaints (e.g. the SF one https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73573242/gomez-v-greystar-management-services-llc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73573242/gomez-v-greyst...) don’t have any new violations; just companies who are already settling. I don’t think that’s justice for a city to frontrun the federal settlement with new violations for the same program.

crooked-v 2mo ago
SF as a city has the fundamental problem that there's a huge part of the electorate will blame the housing shortage on absolutely anything they can find that's not the actual fundamental physical shortage of housing. That leads to an endless tangle of local laws and organizations supposedly trying to "do something about it", that are fundamentally just making the problem worse by adding marginal cost to every new already-difficult-to-pencil housing unit.

WalterBright 2mo ago

Governments are always unsuccessfully trying to repeal the Law of Supply and Demand. They've been trying to do it for the last 4,000 years. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1610161408/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/1610161408/

socialest 2mo ago
Except by creating supply, like socialist run countries do by building social housing.
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  They generally become expensive slums. Including the slums in America built by the government.
hackable_sand 2mo ago
Helium tanks famously represent the Law of Gravity.
FireBeyond 2mo ago
Well, governments have successfully enabled wealth disparity to the point where corporations are buying up several tens of thousands of homes. Maybe free range capitalism isn't the amazing utopia it's cracked up to be?
- WalterBright 2mo ago
  1. There are 90 million single family homes in the US 2. If you want to live in a house, but for less than 5 years, it is better to rent 3. If corporations really want to buy all the houses, there's a business opportunity for you. Build houses and sell them to the corporations at exorbitant prices. 4. Nobody is making anybody sell their home to a corporation. 5. Renting out homes does not reduce the supply of housing. 6. Homes are crummy investments. Capitalist countries are indeed quite amazing compared to socialist countries. That's why people flee socialist countries and try to get in the US.