"Boasting that "one of their company's signature products: software" uses "a mysterious algorithm to help landlords push the highest possible rents on tenants," Parsons wooed landlords. In a since-deleted video, he noted that apartment rents had recently increased by 14.5 percent, bragging that "never before have we seen these numbers" and prodding another executive to agree that RealPage was "driving it, quite honestly." Business Insider dubbed it landlords' "secret weapon.""
"Back then, critics told ProPublica that "at a minimum," RealPage's "algorithm may be artificially inflating rents and stifling competition," noting that "machines quickly learn" to increase prices "above competitive levels" to "win." Today, RealPage's site notes that "its suite of services is used to manage more than 24 million units worldwide." The DOJ reported that on top of collecting its customers' sensitive information-which included rental prices, demand, discounts, vacancy, and lease terms-RealPage also collected data by making "over 50,000 monthly phone calls.""
RealPage sold software whose algorithm helped landlords push higher rents, with executives crediting the product for a recent 14.5 percent rent increase. Critics warned the algorithm may artificially inflate rents and stifle competition as machines learn to raise prices above competitive levels. RealPage reports managing over 24 million units worldwide. The DOJ found RealPage collected extensive nonpublic rental data through customer submissions, market surveys, and over 50,000 monthly phone calls covering millions of units and tens of thousands of properties. Landlords knowingly shared this information, rising rents disproportionately affected low-income residents, and a DOJ settlement bars using such data to facilitate collusion.
Read at Ars Technica
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