This definitely requires some citations. There is no evidence that you are presenting that supports the 2-5% claim.
I don’t think you are fully understanding the impact of price collusion or the suit presented here. The DOJ very clearly thinks this is anticompetitive.
TBF your contention that the impact of price collusion also requires citations. And the DOJ has thought a lot of things, however their track record in court has been not exactly been stellar so I'm not sure how much of a signal that is.
Unless a certain company interferes with market forces — aka the whole purpose of this lawsuit.
If you need a place to live, what’re you going to do, be homeless? They have enough of the market in some cities to impact the market in a way that distorts the prices for everyone. Market forces cannot operate when companies act anticompetitively
Supply will never exceed demand by very much because unlike a chair it's a very expensive good to sit on for long. Nobody profits by "overbuilding" so they won't do it nor defect on pricing given a collective target which benefits all owners.
People aren't pool balls bouncing around on a table they are fully capable of serving their interests.
Its weird to argue against the obvious conclusion that price fixing increases price
An anecdote does not prove that RealPage doesn’t have a greater impact in other markets… That’s just not how logic works.
You also fail to consider that rents may have fallen further if RealPage was not in use.
Honestly the strongest argument I've heard that these algorithms are anticompetitive is "The DoJ thinks they are". So maybe there's some non-public information of anticompetitive behavior.
We don't know how many housing units use Realpage pricing algorithms in 2024, but in 2017 when Realpage bought the tech, it was being used in 1.5 million rentals (https://www.realpage.com/news/realpage-to-acquire-lease-rent...) and there were 43 million rentals in the US, which means nationally they had less than 4% marketshare.
Obviously, cartel behavior (raising prices above market) does not work if you have 4% of the market. Perhaps their sales have gone up 20X in 7 years and they have enough market power for cartel behavior (doubtful)? Perhaps they have a low marketshare nationally, but they have a high marketshare in a few specific markets? Maybe, lets see what the DoJ says.
>Perhaps they have a low marketshare nationally, but they have a high marketshare in a few specific markets? Maybe, lets see what the DoJ says.
I think it's very much this. National market share is meaningless. I live in Northern Virginia -- some SFH that rents in another market is meaningless for someone looking for an apartment here. In this area, it seems very much that all large multi-unit apartment buildings use RealPage. Individually owned condos that are rented out exist, but of course their quantity is very tiny compared to the number of apartment towers/complexes. SFHs, likewise, are poor substitutes, because someone in the price range of a studio, 1 or 2 bedroom unit isn't going to rent a SFH and splitting a SFH brings problems of its own.
From the press release: "The complaint separately alleges that RealPage has unlawfully maintained its monopoly over commercial revenue management software for multi-family dwellings in the United States, in which RealPage commands approximately 80% market share."
That’s 80% of companies who are using revenue management software are using Realpage, not that 80% of rental units are using Realpage revenue management software
... yeah that's pretty much all of them minus some mom and pops who manage themselves. And from personal experience those mom and pops are selling out to management companies now so a whole neighborhood of single family rentals might be actually controlled by just one or two companies.
"The Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division — for the third time in the span of a year — recently failed to convince a jury that alleged agreements to fix or stabilize labor markets should be punished criminally."
