One expert claims that housing prices will slowly drop for a long, long time. There are two culprits: Boomers and Slackers. The Boomers are getting older and will continue to die off and put houses on the market. The Slackers are a large group of young men living in their parents' basements playing video games, with little hope of being able to earn enough money to afford their own apartment, much less a house. About 20% of young men live at home, twice as much as women of the same age. And they don't appear to be good prospects for marriage anytime soon. So if you want to get a good price for a house you're selling, the first step is to throw out the video game junkie in the basement and tell him to look for another place to live. Another expert says it takes on average four deaths to put a house on the market, as the surviving spouse and children will inherit the house. The ‘growing crisis of the young American male’ could send home prices falling for years or even decades, says the ‘Oracle of Wall Street’
this is way past due. this service RealPage, effectively creates a price fixing cartel among large apartment reit's and investors First settlements reached in RealPage rental price-fixing lawsuits | Reuters Feb 5 (Reuters) - Two companies that own and operate multifamily residential properties have agreed to settle claims that they artificially inflated rental prices using RealPage revenue management software. Lawyers for the renter-plaintiffs said in a filing, opens new tab on Monday that they had reached a settlement to resolve all claims against Apartment Income REIT Corp in the Nashville, Tennessee federal court litigation. They told the court on Friday that they reached, opens new tab an agreement with another defendant, Pinnacle Property Management Services LLC, among the largest multifamily property management firms in the United States The terms of the agreements with Denver-based Apartment Income REIT, which does business as Air Communities, and Addison, Texas-based Pinnacle, owned by real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, were not disclosed. Inside the 'housing cartel' accused of pushing up the cost of YOUR rent: Legal battle breaks out over niche tech firm that helps landlords fix prices (msn.com) Software sold by RealPage is used by many of the largest property management firms in the US and suggests prices landlords should charge based on availability and demand in their area. But plaintiffs in several states have brought lawsuits against the firm, claiming landlords share private and commercially sensitive data with the platform which is then weaponized against renters to keep costs as high as possible. In some markets, the majority of property managers in an area are said to use the software for pricing guidance and instruction. Now legal pressures are mounting against RealPage which is run by Dana Jones, a University of Michigan graduate who labels herself a 'growth minded CEO' on LinkedIn.
