[masterjack]

It’s true, but it’s not like other markets where someone can choose not to buy and additional sellers can come in, to make sure that prices are in some ways tied to costs. Here, everybody has to live somewhere, so by default you have a “naked short” position on housing. Efficient price discovery here is performing a short squeeze and finding the point of “maximum you can afford to pay without going broke”, which is only possible to reach with price collusion.

[thunky]

I think you're ignoring something important: competition.

Your statement would only be true if all rental properties were owned by a single entity or small number of colluding entities.

But in reality there is no such thing, and competition for tenants puts a downward pressure on market rents.

[masterjack]

True, but that’s the interesting thing about these kinds of algorithms, they align the pricing approaches so the entities act more like one than they did before, effectively decreasing competition.

[thunky]

I would say that pricing approaches are already aligned, and this software is just another approach that may or may not replace existing approaches in some areas. I don't see how this decreases competition, tough. A competitor can still undercut their competition to attract tenants.