Comment by consensus1

Maybe you’re misunderstanding.

I’m speculating the price would be closer to $1,400 per unit.

The price across this hypothetical town is $2,400 per unit (let’s say it’s a 2 bed 2 bath apartment), “suggested”/set by RealPage software.

Because that’s how using their product worked.

Half of them sit empty because their business model doesn’t care (tax deductions on other income, while still increasing total assets in their portfolio).

There is…a good amount of evidence of landlords doing this, and how:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-r...

and

these landlords coordinated through a variety of means, including:

Directly communicating with competitors’ senior managers about rents, occupancy, and other competitively sensitive topics. In one example, Greystar supplied Camden with information not only about very recent renewal rates, but also its approach to pricing for the upcoming quarter, its acceptance of RealPage’s pricing recommendations, use of concessions and competitively sensitive information about occupancy. Likewise, executives at Camden and LivCor communicated over the course of months about their pricing strategies, including plans for certain price increases. Regularly conducting “call arounds.” During these discussions, euphemistically referred to as “market surveys,” property managers called or emailed competitors to share, and sometimes discuss, competitively sensitive information about rents, occupancy, pricing strategies and discounts. Participating in “user groups” hosted by RealPage. For instance, landlords discussed via user groups how to modify the software’s pricing methodology, as well as their own pricing strategies. In one example, LivCor and Willow Bridge executives participated in a user group discussion of plans for renewal increases, concessions and acceptance rates of RealPage rent recommendations. Sharing information with competitors about parameters in RealPage’s software. As an example, at the request of Willow Bridge’s director of revenue management, Greystar’s director of revenue management supplied its standard auto-accept parameters for RealPage’s software, including the daily and weekly limits and the days of the week for which Greystar used “auto-accept.”

Except you can write off those $1400 units as $2400 of losses that will offset profits from another part of your business.

Not everything is "Economics 101."

You don’t need evidence for vibes based thinking. The goal is to satisfy emotional needs, not logical consistency.