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by fasthands9 963 days ago
I would just wager the number of people locked in to a super specific neighborhood is not that large. Even so I don't think the power law distribution is that extreme here compared to other parts of the economy.

I live in NYC. The housing market sucks here - but I don't think its because of collusion in setting prices. The supply just isn't as high as demand (and millions of voters who already own property seem fine with that)
1 comments
kube-system 963 days ago
It probably is more so in DC than in NYC. Most of the young professionals I know there only consider living in northwest, south of U street, which is only a few neighborhoods.

But if we consider that people would consider living in the larger commute area, the article says:

> Across a wider Washington-Arlington-Alexandria area, more than 90 percent of units in large buildings are subject to RealPage pricing

And these large building are the bulk of the housing stock in these areas, they're not competing with single family homes or duplexes in these areas.

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fasthands9 963 days ago
Right - but what percent of those large buildings are owned by the same people?

I'm not suggesting an app couldn't help coordinate prices in this instance, but I am suggesting that as long as the buildings are owned by other people they still have strong incentive to compete with each other.

If I own a building and the app suggests I raise prices, but then the units don't fill, I'm just going to lower prices.

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kube-system 963 days ago
Whatever the number is, 90% of them are owned by companies that were colluding on pricing.

> If I own a building and the app suggests I raise prices, but then the units don't fill, I'm just going to lower prices.

Yes, but if everyone raises prices together, people won't just choose to be homeless. Collusion is anti-competitive because it ensures that the participants wont compete with each other on price. They all raise rates together so people are stuck: their rent went up, but so did rent everywhere.

In a competitive market, some will raise rates, some will keep them the same, some may drop them. Those differences in strategy is what creates competition. When everyone cooperates to do the same thing, it eliminates competitive pressure.

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