DOJ sues software firm RealPage for allegedly helping landlords collude to keep rents high
cnbc.com
- The Department of Justice accused software company RealPage of unlawfully scheming to undermine competition among landlords and create a monopoly that harms millions of renters.
- RealPage “allows landlords to manipulate, distort, and subvert market forces,” the Justice Department said in the federal civil antitrust lawsuit.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Everybody knows the rent is too damn high, and we allege this is one of the reasons why.”
Can we do Airbnb too?
Edit: Oh look, an Airbnb host/owner must have read my comment. Fuck you for ruining my neighborhood.
i upvoted you, but if a single downvote is provoking that kind of an edit from you, you really need to take a break from the internet for a while
Nah, I don’t really care about downvotes. I really, really hate Airbnb their hosts and their owners. I hate the entire business model. Like I said, they ruined our neighborhood. So the edit is for the Airbnb host/owner. Also, I’m upvoting you because I enjoy having conversations and reading other points of view. Have a great day!
No, I agree. The parasites shitpost amongst us, we must stay vigilant.
Sorry, I’m not understanding your statement.
It is always morally correct to yell at landlords and their related species.
AirBnB is a classic example of us Americans taking a great idea and running it in the ground for profit at the expense of society at large.
What if I have more house than I need and live in a nice area? Rent a room or two out to short-term visitors! I get a little folding money, they get a better and cheaper experience than a hotel.
Then these fuckers started buying homes strictly to make their little hotels. We have to dial this in, and while I'm often skeptical of solving issues with legislation vs. the free market, we seem to be too stupid to stop paying these parasites.
It if makes you feel any better, it looks like the bubble has burst on these damned houses, lots of people going to eat shit in the coming years. I hope.
I now live near 3 Airbnbs one of them is right in front of my house, two more just down the street. My city is embracing the Airbnb model. The entitlement the renters have is through the roof. We live on a narrow street, I’ve been living here with most of my neighbors for about 30 years. All of our houses were built back in the early 60s. The driveways are short and narrow which makes sense because back in the 60s it was rare for a family to own more than one car. Today every family in the neighborhood has at least three cars. None of us have ever parked on the street so as not to interfere with traffic or another neighbor trying to get in or out of their driveway. So we have all sacrificed a portion of our yard to accommodate additional vehicles. The renters don’t give a fuck, they’ll park as many cars on the street as they very well please. The trash can, replete with awful smelling shit, stays out on the street for an entire week. You can’t walk by it unless you want to throw up. This also sometimes leads to me having to pick up their trash from my yard. Even though the listing for the Airbnb states no parties the renters will have large gatherings and we end up with five, six, seven cars all parked up and down the street essentially creating a traffic jam right in front of my house. This sometimes leads to me having to wait several minutes before I can pull out of my driveway. And since it’s technically not illegal to park in the street in my city, there’s nothing we can do. Sometimes corporations will rent the Airbnb for their workers and we end up with giant work trucks parked on the street. I’ve sent pictures to the host but the host doesn’t give a damn. I also have an elderly neighbor that goes into full panic mode every time he sees a strange person on the street, so he’ll come knocking on my door asking if I know what’s going on across the street. No matter how many times I’ve explained it to him he doesn’t seem to grasp the concept of Airbnb. I’ve tried telling him that we now live in front of a hotel. He still doesn’t grasp what is happening to the neighborhood. Traffic has increased threefold. It doesn’t help that sometimes the renters think that our yards are part of their rental agreement, often times I find strangers in my yard looking for a lost ball or some other shit, or, in my other neighbor’s yard playing tag football or whatever fucking sport they’re in town for. I could go on and on but I’ll just leave this last statement. Fuck Airbnb, fuck the hosts, fuck the owners of the house, and fuck that entire business model. Can you tell I hate Airbnb?
And preferably outright ban it!
It's a good idea and has it's place. But see my comment about us Americans taking a good thing and trying to wring every penny out of it, thereby hurting the rest of us.
a lot of cities and neighborhoods ban AirBnB.
if you have an airbnb problem, should bring it up at a local city council meeting to get shit done or an HoA if you live in an HoA neighborhood . its of the few things that actually do work and has shown to work in places.
I’ve been thinking about going to our city council but it looks like our city is embracing the Airbnb model. I think my first order of business is to collect signatures in the neighborhood and then go to our city council. Thanks for the advice!
Last one I went to, booked it, got half way there and the owner said they hadn't approved the booking and tried to blame Airbnb. They tried to get me to tell Airbnb I changed my mind lol
Another one, we brought ice cream because in the photos there was a freezer. It was completely full of ice though so couldn't put the ice cream in
It's so disappointing that hotels are simply so much better. Airbnb had so much potential
"Allows landlords to manipulate.." What are we saying? They shuffle the responsibility of being an asshole onto the software? End of the day landlords were greedy bitch's.
I mean, colluding with your competition to keep prices high is against the law. Yeah, they may still call their buddy across town and (illegally) coordinate what price to set the rent at, but the impact of that, vs a business that's incentivized to keep all prices high to the benefit of them and landlords!? Not even close...
That's quite literally it. It's much easier to raise rents when the magic computer tells you to do it. Then no human in your organization actually has to take responsibility for the decision.
I don't see the problem here. Yes, I'd rather see landlords themselves punished for price fixing, but that's unlikely to happen because it involves prosecuting a huge number of defendants on charges that are hard to prove. Depriving them of software that's tailor made to facilitate price fixing seems like a good first step. Who knows, a successful suit against the software company could end to making it a lot easier to sue the landlords who used it.
If you want more reasons to hate landlords head over to the r/landlords subreddit. The people there are some of the nastiest, heartless people you will ever see.
This is great! Actual work being done on the sky-high rent prices.
Has this guy won any of the high profile cases he’s brought to DOJ?
In 2024, the DOJ has collected over a billion dollars in plea agreements across 3 of the 6 cases brought. The other 3 appear to be unsettled.
https://www.justice.gov/criminal/related-enforcement-actions-2024
Yeah, now where’s my unredacted Mueller Report you fuck.
If Kamala wins, I hope she chooses somebody with some more teeth as the AG. I like Doug Jones personally
I love his work in Star Trek Discovery.
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This one is still net positive?! Lemmy's voting system must be malfunctioning or something.