re: #36 mmmirele

Apparently RealPage is heavily in use in the Phoenix area, leading to massive rent increases since 2020. Our (Democratic) attorney general sued RealPage and residential landlords for what is essentially collusion.

azag.gov

From what I’ve read, RealPage acts like a mafia, going around to landlords or management companies and threatening to cut them off from that sweet sweet colluding data if they don’t raise rents in line with the rest of their clients. It’s a vicious cycle and provokes rent increases.

I seriously hope RealPage gets smashed into smithereens. It’s not just Harlan Crow; it’s that thousands of families in the Phoenix area are living on the edge, one paycheck away from eviction because rents keep getting jacked up.

And it’s also time to go after those companies buying single family homes and renting those out at extraordinary prices.

True rent-seeking behavior which was detested by Adam Smith. They generated income without laboring at all, without improving the land at all. He recognized that the landlord would always raise rents so that the renter was left just enough money to survive. And that this would concentrate money more and more in a few, leaving most people paupers if allowed to continue. He felt that taxing the rentiers was the best way to go to reduce income inequality.