In other words, nobody is culpable and the people with money and resources are able to exploit those below them with impunity.

> The point is that no software has to power to force tenants to pay higher than market rents.

Sure it does.

Having a roof over your head is a fundamental need and people are willing to do a lot to avoid homelessness. If your landlord says to you "rent is going up $500 a month" and you're already struggling financially, uprooting your family is a serious personal and financial hardship many people try to avoid, even if that means giving up basic luxuries.

Not to mention that corporate landlords can absolutely abuse their power to drive prices across an area. We aren't just talking about individual landlords — though even individuals can still own dozens of properties.

I think we probably just need to agree to disagree that this is a form of exploitation.

Now if there is actual price fixing or collusion going on, that's another matter.

> ...

> Now if there is actual price fixing or collusion going on, that's another matter.

If your friend owns 10,000 rentals and sets prices unilaterally, thats blatantly anti-consumer if not monopolistic. Shelter is a basic need and people will pay as much as they can to keep a roof over their heads, until they reach the breaking point.

If you have several friends that control a sizable amount of the housing supply in an area and they agree to charge a certain amount and artificially limit the availabile supply, that seems like price fixing to me. Doesn't matter if you have three friends or three hundred friends.

) When competitors collude, prices are inflated and the customer is cheated.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/810261/download#:~:text=Whe....

In either case, the prices are inflated and people are being cheated.

In my example, the friend is only "fixing" the rent in the sense that it was broken (artificially low) before. I didn't say she controlled the entire supply of housing in the area, and I didn't say she was setting rents artificially high. I don't see a crime.

For some reason you're assuming that anytime rent is raised it's a violation of the tenant's rights.

Artificially low according to what metric — that people are only paying 30-50% of their income towards housing? People are willing to pay a lot for housing because they often have to. I consider it highly unethical to frame squeezing as much money out of people for shelter as "[taking] away the tenant's ability to exploit an inefficiency in market pricing." Inequality, reliance on food shelters, and homelessness were already bad enough before 2020 and have only gotten significantly worse.

Not to mention that many people who would have been able to purchase homes are unable to do so because of large capital groups or investors purchasing large swathes of homes, significantly driving up the costs, and then renting out that supply at inflated rates or converting them to short-term rentals. It benefits no one except those who are already wealthy.

> I didn't say she controlled the entire supply of housing in the area, and I didn't say she was setting rents artificially high.

In fairness you provided 1,000 and 10,000 as examples of the number of rentals she might own.

Regardless, 1k to 2k is a significant jump in rent and there's likely important context beyond the numbers. A real world example I'm familiar with is people moving from a big city to a small town. Is it unethical or criminal for the rent to jump from 1k to 2k if people are willing to pay for it? Not necessarily. But doing so tends to price out people who actually grew up in that town, especially people with lower or fixed incomes, leading to a strain on social systems and homelessness.

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word exploit. I didn't mean that the tenant is cheating the landlord, I just meant that there is an inefficiency in the market and the tenant is able to use it to their advantage.

Rents, like house prices, do have a fair market value. Buyers and sellers are constantly engaging in negotiations every day in order to set prices on the whole. If software helps the buyer or seller negotiate more effectively, that's fine by me.

I don't disagree with you that it's become much more difficult for people to afford housing and other necessities. It's a huge problem. And I think you're on the right track when you mention large investors buying investment property. I wouldn't be opposed to limiting foreign investment. Crossing my fingers that with rates finally rising, housing/rental investment becomes less attractive and the market comes back down to earth and rents come down with it.

And that's a fair point — I just think that "the market" tends to be a harmful concept for basic needs like housing, especially when there are controlling interests whose sole motivation is to maximize profit. I have an inherent distrust of software (https://xkcd.com/2030/), and the fact that programs like YieldStar rely on proprietary formulations and non-public data (or at least data that isn't possible for the average person to reasonably acquire on their own) means you are trusting them to provide a fair valuation when there's a bit of a conflict of interest for them not to. "The market" has been a pretty poor regulatory of corporate malfeasance.

Short-term profit is usually at the cost of longevity. In the case of housing, there is a difficult to quantify 'human cost'. People are generally healthier, more productive, and contribute more to their local economy when they aren't stressed and experiencing financial hardship.

But I digress. I think we both understand each other, agree on a few things, and disagree on others.

> And I think you're on the right track when you mention large investors buying investment property.

Rates rising has definitely cooled the market in my city, albeit prices are still at least 100k over where they were even a year ago. I worry though that the recession we may or may not already be in will simply be an opportunity for big players to swoop in and buy even more supply.

I don't really see things improving without significant changes to things like zoning laws, short-term rentals, and limiting mass-ownership of property (so new supply actually goes to buyers and not speculators).

Actually, it was you who introduced the idea that she owned 10,000 rentals. Please don't insult people's intelligence by suggesting that 10,000 rental units in a market is too small to affect overall pricing.

> If I have a friend that owns a rental property, and I tell her: "you're only charging $1k for rent? you could get $2k easily". Am I helping her exploit her tenant? Now what if she owns 10 rentals? 1,000? 10,000?

Now you're getting it.

They could do this, but if their number is higher than other owner numbers in their area, they lose.

If it's the same as other numbers in their area, they win.

So they need something to coordinate those numbers. A 3rd party, for example.

And thus we arrive at why people call it collusion via a 3rd party.