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Canadian mega landlord using AI 'pricing scheme' as it hikes rents

https://breachmedia.ca/canadian-mega-landlord-ai-pricing-scheme-hikes-rents/
It’s a shift in collective power. At the core of the issue is landlords communicating together to all set fixed high rents has been illegal for decades. This is collective rent fixing with an extra step. The “AI” here is just a buzzword, it’s masking a black box where many landlords pump in lots of data and a black box algorithm spits out higher rents. The issue occurs when a critical mass of landlords use the same service. The market readjusts from free market competition to the maximum the market can bear without collapsing, exactly what the anti-collusion laws were design to prevent. The economic drivers are reversed.

Like generative AI for art, it doesn’t cleanly fit into any existing governance. I would assume new, and irritating complex, laws will be attempted to be written to control this development as it has more immediate real works impact than other forms of “AI”.

The only way to turn it into a real market, is some kind of collaboration software tools for renters or non-intimate partnerships to gang up.

We need tools that arent making choices based on profit increase but humanitarian necessity (which is probably impossible)

Tools such as :

- finding people to share mortgages with, negotiating problems encountered with roomates, ways to re-shuffle roomates around to find better compatibility, incentives for being less of a dick and contributing to happier roomatism

- collective action in an area such as purchasing cheap out of town space with lots of living area and "roughing it" for a while to put downward pressure on rent prices, maybe even negotiating particular prices to trigger a large number of renter signups ( no way this is legal, but it will get bad enough we are going to have to break some rules)

- shared mortgage investment that is based upon agreed lower reasonable profit, or even money parking, instead of maximizing real estate profit (there has to be some philanthropes who would put there money into this?)

- I hate to have to mention negative landlord tracking, but the worst of the worst gets away with so much shit, we need to come up as close to vigilantism we can get while not breaking laws. I foresee the need for tools where we can track exact letter of law harassment limits etc for the worst offenders who are getting away with too much uncaught illegal and immoral landlording

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Another way to turn it into a more competitive market is to introduce large competition in the form of not for profit housing co-ops where the coop buys to rent houses, renters have to buy into the coop, and all profits are put into either buying or building new houses.

The coops keep their rents below that of the competition to attract new members, and can even reduce the rents after the initial outlay has been payed off.

This would then create a number of large semi-altruistic competitors that would throw sand into the capitalistic machine and inhibit price gouging.

Or just have public housing like many other countries do - which provides ample supply without any incentive structure to keep prices going up. Rent can be stabilized and prices can be low from the start to only cover costs. No need to pay for a half dozen middle men.
many cities have public housing. it’s filled with drug addicts, rapists, and people who will rob you for a mint.
43 percent of people in Vienna are addicts, rapists, and thieves?

https://archive.is/20240131194845/https://www.nytimes.com/20...

in the united states
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If the seller is able to unilaterally hike rents beyond the level which people are willing to pay but they pay it anyway because the alternative is total life failure, then it's obviously not a functioning market.
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That's not how it works. There are tons of people who can pick rent vs buy. If rents go up, they'll switch to buy, opening up vacancies.

There are also people who can move to other locations.

If rents are up, you need more houses, it's really not that complicated.

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"“Everything starts at like $2,200 for a new place in Toronto, or even the old ones, if they’re renovated units,” she said, noting that her monthly take-home income is $3,100."

The article blames "AI" for raising rents, and then later says, "well actually, everyone raised rents".

You can have all the AI in the world, and even all the collusion you can manage, but competition still exists, raise rent to the point that people won't rent, you'll have an empty apartment. Lower it (i.e. ignore the collusion) and you'll fill that spot.

The law of Supply and Demand still works.

The only kind of collusion that might break that law is if landlords are forced by the agreement not to lower rent to compete.

It's really very simple: What's the vacancy rate? If it's low, prices are going up, it's as simple as that. Forget the boogeyman (AKA AI), build more houses.

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Well, RealPage was sued for violating antitrust laws for helping landlords collude on price: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-23/thoma-bra...

The complaint states:

> Across America, RealPage sells landlords commercial revenue management software. RealPage develops, markets, and sells this software to enable landlords to sidestep vigorous competition to win renters’ business. Landlords, who would otherwise be competing with each other, submit on a daily basis their competitively sensitive information to RealPage. This nonpublic, material, and granular rental data includes, among other information, a landlord’s rental prices from executed leases, lease terms, and future occupancy. RealPage collects a broad swath of such data from competing landlords, combines it, and feeds it to an algorithm.

Based on this process and algorithm, RealPage provides daily, near realtime pricing “recommendations” back to competing landlords. These recommendations are based on the sensitive information of their rivals. But these are more than just “recommendations.” Because, in its own words, a “rising tide raises all ships,” RealPage monitors compliance by landlords to its recommendations. RealPage also reviews and weighs in on landlords’ other policies, including trying to—and often succeeding in— ending renter-friendly concessions (like a free month’s rent or waived fees) to attract or retain renters. A significant number of landlords then effectively agree to outsource their pricing function to RealPage with auto acceptance or other settings such that RealPage as a middleman, and not the free market, determines the price that a renter will pay. Competing landlords choose to share their information with RealPage to “eliminate the guessing game” about what their competitors are doing and ultimately take instructions from RealPage on how to make business decisions to “optimize”—or in reality, maximize—rents.

> RealPage monitors compliance by landlords to its recommendations.

You don't have to say anything else. That's collusion.

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