U.S. Accuses Software Maker RealPage of Enabling Collusion on Rents
www.nytimes.com
The Justice Department filed an antitrust suit against the real estate software company, accusing it of creating an illegal pricing scheme to charge tenants more.

RealPage, maker of YieldStar, is almost singlehandedly the ones causing rent to skyrocket across much of the United States.

One of the algorithm’s developers told ProPublica that leasing agents had “too much empathy” compared to computer generated pricing.

You can learn more about them here and why this antitrust case is so important:

https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent

    • orcrist@lemm.ee
      11·
      3 months ago

      I hope so, but if I were betting, I would bet that actually the s*** show will continue. Too many very rich people have too much money invested in real estate speculation, and you know they’re going to pressure their friends in Washington to not take away their honey pot.

      I could be wrong, I sure hope I’m wrong, but this doesn’t feel like the climate where we can expect to see significant victories that would benefit the average person. Not yet. Maybe soon? I don’t know.

      • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        3 months ago

        I see in the title reason enough for your cynicism.

        The Justice Department is set to file an antitrust suit against the real estate company RealPage alleging illegal price-fixing facilitated by algorithms

        RealPage is who they are going after, not the collusion, not does it attend to the companies buying up affordable housing or any of the base factors driving the increased costs of shelter. The malignant merging investment companies like blackrock et al are not going to be affected by this, even if it destroyed RealPage. (And im too cynical to believe it will even go further than fines)