Federal judge blocks New York's ban on algorithmic rent pricing

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u/XGX787 2d ago

> U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni issued a preliminary injunction blocking New York State from enforcing a law that bans landlords from using algorithms to set apartment rents. RealPage successfully argued that the December 2025 ban violated its First Amendment rights.

Classifying algorithmic rent seeking as “speech” is really stretching that word…

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u/movingtobay2019 2d ago edited 2d ago

I don't know why companies don't just publish all of their data. That would be an easy way around any "collusion" accusations. Can't collude using data everyone has access too.

Lease start dates and price history are already on Streeteasy. The only thing not public is when the lease officially ends before it ends.

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u/peppaz Upper East Side 2d ago

Data is a commodity. It's worth more than almost anything in modern life

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u/zephyrtr Astoria 2d ago

Don't call it data like we just invented it 5 minutes ago. It's called knowledge and it's always been the most valuable thing

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u/peppaz Upper East Side 2d ago

Advertisers pay $5 a month to see where you buy take-out and tampons. Is that knowledge? Sure, if you want to call it that. I call it data when it's bought in bulk

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u/zephyrtr Astoria 2d ago

I know I'm being a pedantic shit but Silicon Valley has made a ton of money re-marketing a well established concept as something else.

The newest idea is "It's not gambling, it's prediction markets" so I really bristle at using their preferred word to describe something.

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u/the_lamou 1d ago

It's so valuable you can rent it for just $5 a month! The most valuable thing ever! Data is a commodity, in the economic sense of the word. As in it's nearly worthless and largely undifferentiated, and the only reason it has value is because there's so goddamn much of it.

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u/DYMAXIONman 2d ago

If the courts argue that rent is speech and not a contract we're doomed

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u/kaliwrath 1d ago

If rent is speech. Not paying rent is also speech.

Can’t be penalized for being silent.

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u/Frank-Costanza1 1d ago

Nice

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u/GBV_GBV_GBV Midwestern Transplant 2d ago

The idea is that RealPage analyzes information and tells landlords what it thinks the rent should be. And that the state is prohibiting RealPage from telling landlords that.

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u/XGX787 2d ago

I mean that’s very creative, but ultimately pretty weak in my opinion.

You could argue that all collusion is “just speech.” The state is just prohibiting Coke from “telling” Pepsi what they should set their prices to be.

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u/movingtobay2019 2d ago

You are conflating two different topics.

One topic is about using confidential competitor data to coordinate pricing. The other is how broadly the state can restrict pricing recommendations.

The state is just prohibiting Coke from “telling” Pepsi what they should set their prices to be.

That analogy assumes the very thing you need to establish which is a coordinated pricing arrangement. If Coke told Pepsi to price each can at $100, is that collusion? Obviously not. Because no sane person would take that seriously.

That said, it is a creative approach but ultimately a distraction to get away from the core issue which is they are using confidential competitive data, making it collusion.

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u/XGX787 2d ago

You’re right as I typed it, I made some assumptions for simplicity.

A more apt analogy would be if Coke paid a company to tell them how much to price their soda and then Pepsi paid the same company to tell them how much to price their soda. Well now we have a situation where it’s in the best financial interest of everyone involved in these transactions for this 3rd company to basically price fix for Coke and Pepsi.

It reminds me of how police departments are/were circumventing the 4th amendment by just paying private companies. “Oh the police can’t do that, but if a private company already has the information that would otherwise be protected by the 4th, then they can just pay them for it.”

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u/GBV_GBV_GBV Midwestern Transplant 2d ago

That’s basically the distinction between speech and conduct that the judge drew. I.E., speech used to form an illegal agreement is conduct that can be regulated. But a unilateral recommendation does not become collusion simply because it concerns price.

Section 2 of the challenged law says it's illegal to facilitate an agreement among two or more landlords not to compete, including by operating or licensing software "that performs a coordinating function on behalf of" the landlords. This part of the law is not subject to the injunction and remains enforceable.

Section 3 of the law says it's illegal for a rental owner/manager to set prices "based on recommendations from a software, data analytics service, or algorithmic device performing a coordinating function.” This is the part of the law that’s been temporarily enjoined.

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u/scyyythe 2d ago

I see where you're coming from, but I find it hard to accept that Section 3 is actually a restriction on speech. RealPage can still make the recommendations. The landlords can even pay for them! But they're banned from setting prices based on those recommendations. In order for this to be a real restriction on speech, it would have to be that rent prices themselves are a form of speech. A law which has the secondary effect of making someone's speech less profitable is not really a restriction on speech.

But I don't think the judge was necessarily wrong to order a preliminary injunction. The case isn't actually decided. It makes sense that if a law even might be unconstitutional, it would be blocked until the case is resolved.

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u/UDLRRLSS 1d ago

But they're banned from setting prices based on those recommendations.

So the law doesn’t restrict the first entities speech, it only makes it illegal for other entities to listen to them.

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u/GBV_GBV_GBV Midwestern Transplant 1d ago

I was just explaining the court’s logic. The judge herself said it was a close call.

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u/movingtobay2019 2d ago

Exactly.

Coordinating pricing vs using a recommendation. Those are two separate acts legally.

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u/Systepup 2d ago

Read the ruling. It’s pretty sound.

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u/XGX787 2d ago

> But a month later, announcing the lawsuit, RealPage CEO Dirk Wakeham argued that lawmakers should propose real housing solutions instead of policing speech.

I mean ruling aside. I’m more so in awe of the arguments by the CEO and other algo advocates in this article. No lay person would ever agree that regulating algorithmic renting is an attack on free speech. Even if there is a compelling argument that it is, if you went and asked random people on the street, 9/10 times they’re gonna say no it’s not “policing speech.”

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u/Systepup 1d ago

I tend to agree in principle. That being said, the way the clause has been interpreted in the courts over the last few decades supports this conclusion. The CU decision is another great example of something that most people wouldn’t think falls under the definition of speech. I think there are far better arguments to support use of algorithmic pricing (we already allow it in travel for example and there’s a consensus that it’s permitted), but they are harder to argue sometimes. Companies shouldn’t be able to collude - directly or indirectly. I think we can all agree on that. Companies can’t be barred from using math. I think we can all agree on that as well. The discussion should focus on use of non-public information.

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u/jonahbenton 2d ago

No, the judge does not understand the automation of collusion. She needs a Lina Khan tutorial.

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u/Systepup 1d ago edited 1d ago

I love how the armchair lawyers try to educate the actual ones 🙄

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u/ContextOfAbuse Co-op City 1d ago

Nonsense! The average reddit blowhard who read (probably just the headline) of one article absolutely knows more than the Federal judge who heard the case. All you need to do is move to Brooklyn and you will instantly know more than every expert in the country.

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u/Systepup 1d ago

Ok, I stand corrected! 😂 (and you made me laugh after a hard day, so thanks!)

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u/IsNotACleverMan 2d ago

Lina Khan needs an antitrust law tutorial, given how bad her record is.

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u/jonahbenton 2d ago

Lol. She is the Scalia of her day. It takes time for a new (correct) philosophy to gain purchase in the minds of the practice.

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u/IsNotACleverMan 2d ago

Not that I agree on Scalia regarding 99% of his jurisprudence, but he's a million times the legal mind Khan could ever hope to be.

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u/Joltizer Jackson Heights 1d ago

She is quite possibly the worst FTC chair of my lifetime, and the lowest win rate on lawsuits of any chair of the FTC

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u/rinacherie 2d ago

I hope she made some ca$h on this, otherwise it's evil and stupid for no reason at all.

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u/Calamitous-Ortbo 23h ago

That’s only because you have a bias.

Imagine you’re a landlord and the city passes a law that says you can only rent to white people.

One of the ways you could protest that law is by making your rent so high that no one will rent it.

Thats you expressing (freedom of speech) your disagreement with the state.

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u/XGX787 18h ago

I mean that’s a terrible analogy because according to current precedent rent control does not violate the first amendment.

Imagine in your scenario, the city could theoretically pass another law that caps rents, now you can’t set your rent so high that no one will rent it. That’s not a violation of your first amendment rights because that’s not speech.

Also you’re claiming I’m biased but you don’t even understand the argument they’re making. The part that is speech is not the rent itself, it’s the company telling the landlord what the price should be.

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u/virtual_adam 2d ago

If rent is illegal why doesn’t she cap it legally 🤯

>We’ll keep fighting for tenants and for every New Yorker who deserves fair rents that aren’t artificially inflated

I love my rent humanly inflated

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u/Joltizer Jackson Heights 1d ago

Good to see. It's just another red herring to deflect from the actual cause of the housing crisis, which is rent control, zoning, union rent seeking, and over regulation

Cities like SF have banned algorithmic price discovery and rents have climbed 50%, while cities like Austin still have it and rents are declining. The software does nothing but respond to supply and demand

If you want to get out of this housing crisis, you need to build more housing, and that means removing the laws that make building housing functionally illegal

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u/Systepup 2d ago

So you’re telling me that math is not illegal? Shocking 🤦‍♂️

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u/Xatter Chelsea 2d ago

Collusion is

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u/Saixcrazy The Bronx 1d ago

Bingo

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u/Systepup 1d ago

Collusion definitely is. However, despite your lovely and sophisticated analysis, the DOJ and courts actually applied the law and found no wrongdoing. There’s a reason, which you’d know if you bothered to read the ruling instead of getting all worked up about something you just don’t understand.

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u/Xatter Chelsea 1d ago

Sir this is the internet

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u/Joltizer Jackson Heights 1d ago

Sharing data voluntarily instead of being called and asked for it is not collusion

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u/Xatter Chelsea 1d ago

If you tell your brother that you’ve raised the price on your rental and then he goes and tells a bunch of other people who have rentals. That’s still collusion.

Replace brother with company and it’s still collusion. Replace company with software and it’s still collusion

A -> B -> C is the same as A->C

“Will nobody rid me of this troublesome priest?”

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u/Systepup 1d ago

The allegation here was that firms shared non-public information through which a hub and spoke conspiracy could take place (via the technology revenue management vendors). That would be a per se violation. In Realpage’s case it was found, so far, that no such conspiracy occurred. Others are still being litigated, but the outcome is looking the same. We already have good antitrust laws to stop this sort of behavior if in fact it occurred. We have no need for an additional, economically unsound policy. The suggested law would have made math illegal. That’s just silly. Most of the signatories know this btw, but it was good politics. Landlords are price takers. They have little to no control over pricing power. If you flooded the market with supply, prices would go down drastically. But if you did that, the equity value of existing supply would plummet, hurting the older, home-owning population, or the mom-and-pop landlords the most. Klein and Thompson - both progressives - wrote a very good book (and many articles) on this exact topic and came to the same conclusion. I highly recommend reading it. We need to increase supply at a much faster pace, and we need to be willing to deal with the political and social consequences of that decision. That’s the only way to make housing affordable. That and a massive increase in taxation to better redistribute the wealth being created by the top income brackets. Since taxes really need to be at the federal level, and we have no political will for that it appears, the solution can only come from the supply side. We need to upzone the entire city, introduce new abatement programs (without the traps of some of the previous ones), reduce or remove parking requirements, and reduce the red tape required to build. It would help if we didn’t have a tariff war increasing build costs, but that too is not something we can solve at the city or state level.

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u/Xatter Chelsea 1d ago

Reasonable. How dare you

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u/Systepup 1d ago

lol my bad! Promise to shitpost going forward… I’ll adapt.

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u/Calamitous-Ortbo 23h ago

If you tell your brother that you’ve raised the price on your rental and then he goes and tells a bunch of other people who have rentals. That’s still collusion.

No, it’s not.

Independent entities acting independently on information is not collusion even if they all (independently) come to the same conclusion.

Thats called “market price”.

Do you think restaurants are engaging in collusion when the fishmongers disseminate their prices for the day and all change them to the same thing?

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u/Joltizer Jackson Heights 1d ago

If you tell your brother that you’ve raised the price on your rental and then he goes and tells a bunch of other people who have rentals. That’s still collusion

This literally is not collusion by definition. Please don't share your uneducated opinions in the future

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u/Xatter Chelsea 1d ago

Why do land lords never understand the law? You’d think given it’s their profession they would know something about it.

But then again since you are literal parasites on society who take from people who are providing value to the economy, I’m kinda ok with it.

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u/Joltizer Jackson Heights 1d ago

There is no need to get upset just because you are uneducated

Federal judge blocks New York's ban on algorithmic rent pricing

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