The problem is political, landlords run every level of government and use that power to artificially limit housing supply.

Is allowing price-fixing and deniability (ans a service) across 100 mile regions a problem, while you yourself are highlighting a supply-side crisis?

Yes. That’s a problem.

It can be, if everyone also acts to keep prices high by behaving in ways that aren't typical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_collusion

Tacit collusion wouldn't work in this case, because most rental markets aren't oligopolies.

On its own? Of course not. Collusion is much more specific a term than that.

The case wasn't even remotely flimsy:

The software literally includes an algorithm that says "this week, you will set the rate for this apartment at $X" based on RP's data.

And, if you want to deviate from that, without being kicked off RP and losing your substantial fee payments, you will follow that rate (and they tell you that they _will_ check), or you can "request an override" from RealPage, that they may allow or deny at their discretion (and RP agents are formally trained that override approvals may not exceed 5% of requests).

> Consistent with their agreement to impose rents generated by RealPage RM Software nearly all the time, Defendants agreed to limit overrides. For example, a RealPage LRO training document states: “Overrides should be few and far between.” Similarly, internal RealPage LRO training documents teach cartel members’ regional managers to beware of “Override Overload” or “rogue” leasing agents who too frequently override the LRO-generated pricing.

> An internal presentation created by Defendant Greystar explicitly acknowledges that RealPage RM Software users should each seek to accept at least 95% of the RealPage-generated prices, emphasizing that “Discipline [o]f using revenue management increases more consistent outcomes.”

> Former Greystar employees have similarly confirmed that negotiating rents other than those set by the RealPage RM Software was unacceptable.

> Even where Participating Landlords do not enable auto-accept, most landlords cannot, on their own, charge rents other than those generated by RealPage’s RM Software— landlords can only “propose an override.” The landlord must then provide a written business justification for why they wish to depart from the RealPage-generated rent.

"Not price fixing", huh?

Just to reiterate that training presentation:

> Discipline [o]f using revenue management increases more consistent outcomes.

Most landlords arent big corporate in the USA either especially in areas where the housing crisis is the worst.

I think this narrative is just meant to distract people from questioning the necessity of the landlord class, they want people angry at a faceless corporate boogieman instead of local landlords (for obvious reasons)

We have something similar in Spain, except instead of "comparable rentals in the area" there is a index (called IRAV (Índice de Referencia de los Alquileres)) maintained by the government each year, which limits how much rents can be increased. My landlord just reference that each year, it's easy for me to check if it's right, then that's it. For the areas where supply is limited ("áreas tensionadas"), as some areas like Barcelona is geographically limited to expansion, there is a total limit as well, independent of the IRAV.

Of course, if there are improvements in the rental, you can go beyond the index as the property been "improved", but it's really handy to know each year that it's limited and the exact amount. For 2026 it's locked to 2.14% for example, for everyone.

The prices should be delayed two months. The rate at which pricing information propagates dictates how much of the rental pricing mass (number of owners * average units owned) gets thrown around how quickly. I don't have a number, but something like 2 months. Treat this data as if it was a vile of Devil's venom [1]. If they setup back channel information sharing networks, or collusion networks of any kind. <bad thing happens, not just a fee>

Second, the historical database should be deleted. And if they can't survive that, so be it. Keeping the spoils of crime should be the crime. Justice still isn't finished.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_venom

By what mechanism do the producers keep prices high if the "lots of competition" is constantly undercutting them and adding new supply to replace anything the colluding subset tries to withhold from the market?

Can you share several articles about this? I haven't found one but it's hard to search for.

Those sources are tainted. There is an epidemic of fake listings on websites where once you call to inquire, it turns to a bait and switch where they say the fake apartment is no longer available and tell you "what else" they have instead.

No, those are advertised prices, not actual prices.

Look at the difference in prices between recent home sales and listed home prices, it's exactly the sort of information differential I'm talking about.

The US protects its homeowners above all, which is why there are these public databases of true sale prices of real estate. Renters should have the same protections and information too.

The general premise of the rental market is that if rents are high, the profits from building new rental units will justify the construction costs and then new units will be added until the rents go down, i.e. until it stops being profitable to add more.

This actually works unless you inhibit the construction of new units. Naturally that's what we've been doing, which is why it isn't working. But the solution is to stop inhibiting the construction of new units.

Because the alternatives don't actually work. Unless you can build enough units to meet demand, there aren't enough units. Which means you either have high prices which suppress demand because people who can't afford them are forced out, or shortages because you're imposing some inadvisable price controls and then instead of being unable to get a unit because you can't afford the rent, you can't get a unit because they're all occupied and no one is adding more.

Well the point of market based interventions and government regulations like this is primarily to reduce information asymmetry. You still ultimately need to increase supply or reduce demand to move price.

Depends on the rate of information update and how long the records are retained for. High frequency updates create a higher fidelity information channel.

Berlin wants to do that to enforce rent control more effectively.

Americans are too privacy focused to accept this, but I could easily see a cottage industry of "registered agents" popping up around it who sign leases on behalf of individuals and shield them from public scrutiny.

Alternatively we could keep the names private. A cryptographic solution would easily serve the need of authorities verifying the right person is in a place without identification, but good luck figuring out how to ensure the tenant has their keys somehow since in the US there are zero pieces of identification you can ensure every citizen has.

I think publishing your own rental contract is already legal?

(Unless the other party to the contract deliberately asks you in the contract to keep it quiet. But that's something you need to actively agree to.)

Well, a Torrens registry systems still isn't universal yet in the US.

> It is a supply issue caused by local building codes and zoning. Full stop.

But RealPage isn't a supply issue? It's easy to price gouge consumers because housing is inelastic. And the fine they got is a slap on the wrist!

Price gouging is more widespread than one isolated price fixing case. It's easy to achieve in an inelastic market. As one example, moving costs money so rentiers can raise rents as long as there is a switching cost to moving. Deregulation doesn't address the fundamental inelasticity of the housing market.

Your comment also seems to be oblivious to the role that interest rates play. Mortgages are not corporate-owned in the sense of the parent comment, but mortgages are a cash flow from home owners to corporate financiers - a cash flow from the working class to the wealthy. ZIRP led to high prices; with rising rates, homeowners are incentivized to hold on to their properties rather than move. These are issues of macroeconomic finance and wealth disparity, not "building codes and zoning".

While you're right that the parent's comment of corporate ownership of houses is off base, multi-family housing is majority corporate owned. Multi-family housing is a huge portion of the housing market, particularly in cities where prices are highest. Corporations aren't "just scapegoats" here either - they are parasitizing cash flow from workers here as well. Corporate profits is where the money in high housing prices ultimately goes.

There is a reason billionaires astroturf YIMBYism. It's precisely because it doesn't threaten their class interests.

> The fact that the number of houses owned by large corporations is so low as to be insignificant shows that it’s basically 0% of the cause.

There's a disturbing amount of misinformation in this thread.

"So low as to be insignificant"? Apartments are a little different but for SFHs

Individuals held 59.6% of single-family rental properties in 2024, down from 70.9% in 2021.

(https://www.credaily.com/briefs/single-family-rental-ownersh...)

I don't know how you come to the conclusion of "insignificance".

AIUI LLCs for rental properties have very little protective power in court, and are easily shredded by plaintiffs' attorneys. If you thought that you were getting some degree of legal protection from holding your small multifamily in an LLC- you're probably not.

For example- do you have a mortgage? Almost certainly in your name, you have to be very large to receive a mortgage as a corporation. If you're holding a property in an LLC but the mortgage in your name, that's classic piercing the corporate veil and will take an attorney about 10 minutes to shred that in court

Why? Same cash flow it just goes to mortgage you own instead of landlords mortgage + their profit margin. It would actually be cheaper for current renters because of this.

Where is this calculator?

RealPage isn't even the only one in its industry:

https://imgur.com/a/RR2vWnJ

  AUTOMATIC PRICE UPDATES

  New pricing information automatically pushes  to marketing website and ILS listings in real  time.

  During a six month study  with an Entrata client  using Entrata Pricing,  market rents grew 15%  more than a comparable  set of properties within  the same company.

Their marketing documents admitted to the exact same behavior.

No one cared about those of us hurt by this company to even bother filing a lawsuit against them.

I mean we all have chatgpt now:

  Industry          Companies
  ----------------  --------------------------------------
  Apartments        RealPage, Yardi, Rentana, Entrata
  Hotels            IDeaS, Duetto, RoomPriceGenie
  Airlines          PROS, Amadeus
  Grocery           Revionics, Yieldigo, Competera
  Retail            Pricefx, Omnia Retail, Wiser Solutions
  E-commerce        Prisync, Price2Spy, Intelligence Node
  Manufacturing     Zilliant, Vendavo
  Vacation rentals  PriceLabs, Beyond, Wheelhouse
  Events/tickets    DynamO Pricing, Digonex

You've never used salary data at a work place?

That sort of counters the advice to get three quotes. If every bidder has that info, it may be harder to get the "best" price.

I was curious, so I looked this up: Section 5.3 of the 2010 U.S. merger-guideline explicitly classified markets with a Herfindahl–Hirschman Index below 1,500 as “unconcentrated.”

I can't quote the formula here, but HHI is, apparently, the sum of squared percentage market shares. Six equal-sized suppliers give an HHI of approximately 1,667, while seven give approximately 1,429—on opposite sides of the 2010 threshold.

Is that where you got the number?

Fiber internet is an interesting one - where the incumbents will "dump" (not necessarily below cost, though who knows, but below market rate) if they think you intend to compete with them.

HN is filled with stories of exorbitant rates from AT&T and Comcast that get slashed 70%+, speeds doubled, as soon as a newcomer is ready to offer fiber.

In fact, there was even a story here of a community where they formed a company that could not have done it, or not without a huge effort, but just hinted that they were exploring offering fiber to a town - and just that hint was enough for Comcast to say "wait, wait, we did the math and you all have been overpaying for internet!"

I agree that those are challenges. Maintaining competition in markets is well-studied; I wonder what has been found - what can be done, how can the scope be limited without failing on the outcomes, etc.

I wonder about the failure of the PRC while heaving 500 million out of poverty the last 50 years. Interesting failure mode.