37 votes

America’s landlords settle claim they used rent-setting algorithms to gouge consumers nationwide for $141 million

Posted by AugustusFerdinand
Tags: business, usa, real estate, housing, renting, landlords, legal, lawsuits, settlements, technology, algorithms, realpage, rights.consumer, rent, price fixing, author.r j rico, source.fortune, paywall
https://fortune.com/2025/10/03/americas-landlords-settle-claim-they-used-rent-setting-algorithms-to-gouge-consumers-nationwide-for-141-million/

Link information

This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.

Authors
R.J. Rico,The Associated Press
Word count
526 words

12 comments

  1. [2]
    chocobean
    Link
    Rent goes up, people rush to borrow enough to buy, "retail investors" rush in to become slumlords, property value goes up, property owners cheer the government. All according to plan. Even if they...

    Rent goes up, people rush to borrow enough to buy, "retail investors" rush in to become slumlords, property value goes up, property owners cheer the government. All according to plan.

    Even if they returned this stolen $141m (they won't) to renters, the opportunity cost that took money from the young and the poor to boost the real estate bouy cannot be compensated. We are all much poorer for this, collectively

    26 votes
    1. OBLIVIATER
      Link Parent
      Yeah, this has to be only a drop in the bucket from what they've extorted out of Americans overall. Even the companies that aren't related to Realpage benefited heavily from this price fixing. "A...

      Yeah, this has to be only a drop in the bucket from what they've extorted out of Americans overall. Even the companies that aren't related to Realpage benefited heavily from this price fixing. "A rising tide raises all ships" so to speak, the rent went up for some places so others were able to raise their rent as well. And now the damage has been done, rents may be decreasing slightly in some major areas; but they're already up 100-200% in the last 10 or so years for many of those areas so it would take a MAJOR decrease to have any real effect on affordability.

      16 votes
  2. [5]
    teaearlgraycold
    Link
    People should be going to prison over this.

    People should be going to prison over this.

    26 votes
    1. [4]
      vord
      Link Parent
      Given the state of American prisons, the people responsible would probably be better off with execution. In prison they'd probably be worse off than the child molestors. Second thought, yea. But...

      Given the state of American prisons, the people responsible would probably be better off with execution. In prison they'd probably be worse off than the child molestors.

      Second thought, yea. But then so should pretty much anybody in banking or finace from about 2004 to 2008 and we see how that turned out.

      3 votes
      1. teaearlgraycold
        Link Parent
        If they went to prison it would be one of those adult summer camps with people like Elizabeth Holmes.

        If they went to prison it would be one of those adult summer camps with people like Elizabeth Holmes.

        10 votes
      2. OBLIVIATER
        Link Parent
        White collar criminals never get touched in prison, they're always in minimum security resorts. Even if they weren't there, I doubt most people in prison are class conscious enough to recognize...

        White collar criminals never get touched in prison, they're always in minimum security resorts. Even if they weren't there, I doubt most people in prison are class conscious enough to recognize how much damage these people have done to the lower classes.

        8 votes
      3. l_one
        Link Parent
        Nah. Prison in the US isn't the same if you're wealthy enough. Epstein (the prior time he went to prison) got to just leave during the day to 'work' at his office. He only ended up actually...

        Given the state of American prisons, the people responsible would probably be better off with execution. In prison they'd probably be worse off than the child molesters.

        Nah. Prison in the US isn't the same if you're wealthy enough. Epstein (the prior time he went to prison) got to just leave during the day to 'work' at his office. He only ended up actually suffering permanent consequences because enough other select individuals with wealth and power viewed him as a source of unacceptable risk.

        7 votes
  3. boxer_dogs_dance
    Link
    This is only one of several similar lawsuits

    This is only one of several similar lawsuits

    11 votes
  5. [3]
    snake_case
    Link
    Anyone know how the software works? iirc it used credit scores to determine how much you can afford to pay for a unit? I tried to look it up but all the descriptions are hazy probably cause its ip

    Anyone know how the software works?

    iirc it used credit scores to determine how much you can afford to pay for a unit? I tried to look it up but all the descriptions are hazy probably cause its ip

    1 vote
    1. MimicSquid
      Link Parent
      It was good old collision, but mediated by the app ao that no one could say that they shared their pricing strategies with their "competitors". So everyone raised the rents in lockstep without...

      It was good old collision, but mediated by the app ao that no one could say that they shared their pricing strategies with their "competitors". So everyone raised the rents in lockstep without ever having to discuss it.

      7 votes