Timoth Majidzadeh, Chelle Davies, Peter Benzoni, Ahmad Allaou, Patrick Yim
Spring 2025
We investigate allegations, spotlighted by ProPublica in 2022, that algorithmic pricing products for rental housing sold by RealPage inflate rent due to "Algorithmic Colluison"; the tendency of pricing algorithms to co-ordinate price levels.
Our propensity score model identifies a rent uplift of about 25 cents per square foot (about $200 for an 800 square foot apartment). We perform synthetic control analysis on RealPage's 2017 acquisition of Lease Rent Options (LRO) to test for collusion effects arising from market consolidaiton. We do not find evidence that collusion-like effects were created or exacerbated by this merger.
For our full results, see our website and our research paper.