RealPage's YieldStar pricing algorithm was used by major landlords across the US to systematically coordinate rent increases, with the software analyzing competitor data to recommend prices that drove rents up 14.5% in some markets while reducing housing supply.
RealPage, a Texas-based property management software company, developed and deployed YieldStar (later called AI Revenue Management), an algorithmic pricing system used by major landlords to set rental prices across millions of apartment units in the United States. The software collected private rental data from competing landlords and used this information to generate daily pricing recommendations that typically resulted in rent increases. According to company executives, the algorithm was 'driving' rent increases of up to 14.5% in some markets, with property managers accepting up to 90% of the software's recommendations. The system was designed to discourage negotiation with tenants and sometimes recommended accepting higher vacancy rates to maintain elevated rents. RealPage became the dominant provider after acquiring its main competitor LRO in 2017, following DOJ approval. By 2020, the company reported managing 19.7 million rental units. The software's widespread adoption led to concentrated market control, with examples like one Seattle neighborhood where 70% of apartments were managed by just 10 property managers, all using RealPage's pricing software. The Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit in August 2024, alleging the system facilitated illegal price coordination among landlords, harming millions of renters through artificially inflated rents.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Social and economic inequalities caused by widespread use of AI, such as by automating jobs, reducing the quality of employment, or producing exploitative dependencies between workers and their employers.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed