U.S. landlords who use RealPage products to set prices on rental apartments are facing accusations of collusion.
  • A group of lawsuits accuse large landlords of price-fixing the market rate of rent in the United States
  • A complaint filed by Washington D.C.’s Attorney General alleges 14 landlords in the district are sharing competitively sensitive data through RealPage, a real estate software provider
  • RealPage recommends prices for roughly 4.5 million housing units in the United States
  • RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions

A group of renters in the U.S. say their landlords are using software to deliver inflated rent hikes.

“We’ve been told as tenants by employees of Equity that the software takes empathy out of the equation. So they can charge whatever the software tells them to charge,” said Kevin Weller, a tenant at Portside Towers since 2021.

Tenants say the management started to increase prices substantially after giving renters concessions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • SoylentBlake@lemm.eeEnglish
    8·
    10 months ago

    Fuck yea man. I don’t understand how people can work for sleezebag companies. I know a lot of us have to work, I get it, but I worked phones (retention, the worst) for a credit card company for a bit and I was able to do it on the up, and be legitimately helpful for customers, all while I refused to upsell anything that they didn’t want.

    I’d get “talked to” about it but I never cared. What’s a better experience for the customer? fuck your monthly metrics, the idea is to RETAIN customers, right? Well that starts by not fucking them off so you can make a bonus.

    I never got a bonus, and I never cared. I’m of the mind that the product should sell itself, otherwise it’s not ready for market. If it’s not filling a need then it’s a waste of time and frankly, a companies resources. People generally don’t forgive corporations, nor should they. It still offends me that if sales weren’t what they were expecting it’s somehow the people at the bottoms fault, especially when the people writing the shit don’t have any need for the product. I won’t be moved from this rock. If my sales aren’t to your specs, take that back to legal and your ideas guys and tell them to try harder. Weak links can be found in more than one place.

    Fwiw, I left the company, they didn’t let me go. To this day I refuse to carry debt or even own credit cards tho. Nope, doesn’t sit well with me. On the same vein tho, I measure how successful I am by how little I need and how little I spend, not how much I earn. This monopolization of everything has turned me staunchly anti-consumer (in the sense of consumption in general, not heil corporate/anti-customer. Right to repair 100%, revoke charters of those that bad faith skirt the intention). I both rue the reactionary in me, even if came from biological imperative, and fucking LOVE where Ive landed at the same time.

    All you need to do in this world to win is kill your internal sense of justice but that’s a price too high. Team Rawls for life.

    • SolarMech@slrpnk.net
      1·
      10 months ago

      I don’t understand how people can work for sleezebag companies.

      This is part one.

      To this day I refuse to carry debt or even own credit cards tho.

      I think this is part two.

      It’s awesome that you do this, but if you can afford to avoid debt entirely you are probably somewhat priviledged compared to some. A lot of people in the US are working off student debts for degrees that didn’t quite deliver the jobs they were expecting. Or just were dealt a bad hand to begin with.

      • SoylentBlake@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        10 months ago

        No man. In no way. I chop my firewood everyday. I have to rebuild everything I own. Everything. If it breaks, my life is learning whatever it is until it’s fixed. Case in point, my automatic transmission went out. I had to learn that and rebuild that. I am not a novice with a wrench, but that’s entirely because this is the life I’ve always had to live. I don’t not recommend it, I wouldn’t put my work load onto someone else and call that a rational thought.

        July 5th we lost everything we own to fire. From our neighbors fireworks, we didn’t have any. Insurance told us to kick rocks. Starting over. Completely. Again.

        No man. I’m not privileged. I got more help from my neighbors than my family, not to begrudge them, they’re all spread too thin too. I paid off my student loans in the mid aughties thankfully. I got the worst of the bunch, 3/4 of a degree, 4 years of debt and no degree. Thanks life. I took a vacation, once. I’ve been working full time since I was 15, almost 30 years now. I can’t afford dental care that I need and I don’t know what to do about that really, but I can tell, if it involves filling out 59 pages of bullshit that all says the same thing and spreading that nonsense around 5 agency, I’ll die from an abscess tooth first. The hoops required for help are indignant, and frankly, everyday the world makes a worse case for sticking around.

        The only privilege I would say I have is I measure my success by what I don’t buy, which is the biggest middle finger I can give our society, as I teach others how to do the same. I’d go 128days on my dominant arm if that would put me at the negotiating table of an American General Strike. You couldn’t talk me out of it, in fact.

        The only silver lining is that if I could not be me, then I would only want to be Diogenes.

        • SolarMech@slrpnk.net
          2·
          10 months ago

          Sorry to hear about your hardship. You deserve a better system. Best of luck rebuilding and I hope things get better.