RealPage’s YieldStar is an analytics algorithm that uses rental rate data to help landlords set rental prices. The software touts the fact that rents have shot up over the last year as both a feather in its cap and one of its main selling points. According to its executives’ messaging and information reviewed by ProPublica, it’s played an outsize role in increasing rents nationwide, too. Some see the algorithm as potentially illegal and anti-competitive, enabling the sharing of anonymous rental price data with other landlords. The company’s internal belief is that landlords have ‘way too much empathy’ when it comes to pricing rents, especially when the people they’re renting to come from similar income brackets as them. But not much is known about the specific workings of the algorithm. . . .
Read more at futurism.com
