U.S. landlords who use RealPage products to set prices on rental apartments are facing accusations of collusion.
  • A group of lawsuits accuse large landlords of price-fixing the market rate of rent in the United States
  • A complaint filed by Washington D.C.’s Attorney General alleges 14 landlords in the district are sharing competitively sensitive data through RealPage, a real estate software provider
  • RealPage recommends prices for roughly 4.5 million housing units in the United States
  • RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions

A group of renters in the U.S. say their landlords are using software to deliver inflated rent hikes.

“We’ve been told as tenants by employees of Equity that the software takes empathy out of the equation. So they can charge whatever the software tells them to charge,” said Kevin Weller, a tenant at Portside Towers since 2021.

Tenants say the management started to increase prices substantially after giving renters concessions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
    6·
    10 months ago

    The answer is probably a combination of things. We need to be able to build more houses / duplexes / apartment buildings / etc. That’s a fact. There could be ways to help people build their own house (up to code) and cut out the middleman.

    If people could easily build their own, do you know how fast property values would drop? Homes in the middle of nowhere should cost nothing.

    • guacupado@lemmy.world
      34·
      10 months ago

      Homes in the middle of nowhere are already cheap. Making more housing isn’t a solution if billion dollar corporations can just buy all of them up for more than asking.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
        5·
        10 months ago

        We need housing where people work. Living in the middle of nowhere isn’t helpful for 75% of the country.

      • Pipoca@lemmy.world
        3·
        10 months ago

        Corporations buy housing because they beleive its a good investment.

        Right now, they’re right. But a lot of that is because it’s legally hard to build enough new housing to keep up with demand in many cities because most of their area is zoned exclusively for mcmansions.

        Housing in the middle of nowhere being cheap if you can’t get a good job in the middle of nowhere.

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
        21·
        10 months ago

        You think if people build their own houses, then mysterious billion dollar corporations will buy them up? That’s… weird. I don’t know how that would be bad. You could just build another one.

      • BlackmistEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        Charge 50% tax on rental properties.

        Put the money into a fund that builds more properties in that area.

        You can argue that the tax will be passed on to renters, but they’re already charging all the market can bear because there’s a shortage of property.