Dare Obasanjo

This article is meant to be an exposé of how rents keep rising 10-20% each year because landlords use the same price setting software.

However it explains that landlords get loans from banks who assume rents will go up that much to justify the loans.

Blaming the wrong culprit.

If every landlord uses an app that says raise rents over 10% each year and does so, it seems there’s a broader structural problem than recommendations from an app.

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-06-18-how-algorithm-turned-apartment-pools-green/

How an ‘Algorithm’ Turned Apartment Pools Green

RealPage, the rent-fixing software company currently under FBI investigation, also has apps for bogus fees, monetizing vacant apartments and inflating toxic property bubbles.

The American Prospect
Jun 20, 2024 at 9:22amWeb
Show threadklausfiend has movedJun 20, 2024

@carnage4life Pressure from banks isn't the whole story, but also -- monopoly control of anything is virtually guaranteed to lead to abuses. This is why we generally agree as a society that monopolies are bad:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/monopoly-round-up-fbi-raids-big-corporate

Monopoly Round-Up: FBI Raids Big Corporate Landlord Over Nationwide Rent Hikes

I’ll get to the good and bad news of the week, but first I want to note the big story - Donald Trump’s conviction by a jury in New York - and a little story with big implications - the Federal Bureau of Investigation raiding a corporate landlord in cahoots with a nation-wide rent-fixing cartel that affects up to 16 million apartments.

BIG by Matt Stoller
Show threadScott MatterJun 20, 2024

@carnage4life

Capitalism, eh?

Show threadAaron TurnerJun 20, 2024
@carnage4life humans will believe anything a computer tells them. Monopolies are bad. AI will totally save us from this. Oh wait; maybe not the last part.
Show threadc0rkJun 20, 2024

@carnage4life first sub-link on Techmeme. Kewl!

I agree that at a fundamental level the capitalist push for perpetual growth motivates and incentivizes apps like this to be developed.

At the same time, it seems as though this is a symbiotic relationship in the sense that the banks are now hip to the scheme and able justify and profit from traditionally irrational property investments because of the apps ability to extract value.

… another way to siphon wealth to the “investor class”

Show threadHeath BordersJun 20, 2024
@carnage4life it's price fixing. I don't know why banks recognizing that price fixing exists complicates anything