alt Hacker News> The sharpest criticisms of the book Abundance have sometimes come from the antitrust movement. This group, mostly on the left, insists that the biggest problems in America typically come from monopolies and the corruption of big business.
ctrl-F "RealPage" - nothing. hmm.
ctrl-F "rent" - also nothing. really?
from about a year ago: Justice Department Sues RealPage for Algorithmic Pricing Scheme that Harms Millions of American Renters [0]
> The Justice Department, together with the Attorneys General of North Carolina, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington, filed a civil antitrust lawsuit today against RealPage Inc. for its unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing and to monopolize the market for commercial revenue management software that landlords use to price apartments.
> ...
> Another landlord commented about RealPage’s product, “I always liked this product because your algorithm uses proprietary data from other subscribers to suggest rents and term. That’s classic price fixing…”
if I hear about antitrust in the context of housing policy, RealPage making it easier for apartment buildings to collude on rent prices is the very first thing that leaps to mind.
it seems like Thompson is being awfully selective about which antitrust-related criticisms he's responding to here. he seems to be focusing exclusively on building single-family homes, and completely ignoring the concrete example of monopoly power being used for apartment rentals, and antitrust laws being used to address that.
0: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s...
Replies
Collusion among landlords can only work in a housing shortage. With an abundance of rental units, individual landlords would "defect" (in a game theory sense) and lower rents in order to fill their vacant units at the market price.
> it seems like Thompson is being awfully selective about which antitrust-related criticisms he's responding to here
He was responding to a specific critique of his book. So... yes. That's how that works.
I wish everyone who cares about the price of housing could go to a hearing like this one. Sadly, they happen in every community so if you're curious, you ought to go:
https://bendyimby.com/2024/04/16/the-hearing-and-the-housing...
That is your housing shortage right there.
Now, Real page probably jacks up prices a bit. A bit multiplied by a lot of renters means real harm and it was probably worth taking them to court over.
However, at the end of the day, RealPage is simply not enough to get Los Angeles rents out of Houston property. Supply and demand are still where it's at.
Can you cite some evidence of a place where RealPage's supposed power has led to a consumer harm like higher rents? I may be biased because my research has been cited by RealPage in their suit against the city of Berkeley, but to me RealPage just finds the market clearing price, and that's not particularly evil in my book.
Thompson is responding to a specific paper.
'One of the most detailed articles in this space is an analysis of the Dallas, Texas, housing market by the lawyer and writer Basel Musharbash. In “Messing With Texas: How Big Homebuilders and Private Equity Made American Cities Unaffordable”'
Musharbash doesn't mention RealPage either, so go blame him, since he doesn't think RealPage contributes to Dallas's problems.