San Francisco to ban software that “enables price collusion” by landlords | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/08/san-francisco-to-ban-software-that-enables-price-collusion-by-landlords/
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/08/san-francisco-to-ban-software-that-enables-price-collusion-by-landlords/
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I think it's a good example of politicians doing something that's less effective and more politically acceptable.
It isn't like anyone disagrees information asymmetry (the landlord knowing more about local prices than the tenants) can help drive up prices, but what's going on here is like someone who is a habitual drunk driver promising to put a speed limiter on their car so they won't exceed the speed limit. That's great, but it's not the problem.
The problem being that they're attracting lots of people to the region but there just aren't that many places to live. This is the fundamental market imbalance that leads to higher rents in the bay area. Their options are to take measures to make the city less attractive to live in, do things to help improve supply such as rezoning, or try to push some of the WFH folks who don't even live in the city to release their empty apartments back into the market.
Most of those will piss off someone or other, so they won't do any of that and instead do the thing that won't break anyone's heart and appears to be "something" but also won't really change anything.
It isn't like anyone disagrees information asymmetry (the landlord knowing more about local prices than the tenants) can help drive up prices, but what's going on here is like someone who is a habitual drunk driver promising to put a speed limiter on their car so they won't exceed the speed limit. That's great, but it's not the problem.
The problem being that they're attracting lots of people to the region but there just aren't that many places to live. This is the fundamental market imbalance that leads to higher rents in the bay area. Their options are to take measures to make the city less attractive to live in, do things to help improve supply such as rezoning, or try to push some of the WFH folks who don't even live in the city to release their empty apartments back into the market.
Most of those will piss off someone or other, so they won't do any of that and instead do the thing that won't break anyone's heart and appears to be "something" but also won't really change anything.
@Hyolobrika good, but it won't solve the problem on the supply side
@Hyolobrika I think there should be a new nomenclature for organizations that rent large amounts of housing instead of just "landords" as it's vindicate individual landlords to be categorized like this scum.