Competition Bureau should probe potential rent price fixing: minister

Canada’s manufacture curate is calling connected the Competition Bureau to probe whether Canadian landlords are utilizing AI bundle successful alleged rent-fixing schemes.

Francois-Philippe Champagne’s telephone comes a time aft the CBC reported connected the usage of a bundle called YieldStar by immoderate firm landlords.

In a missive to Competition Bureau Commissioner Matthew Boswell, Champagne urged him to usage tools wrong the Competition Act to look into the “use of algorithmic rising successful the rental market.”

“I privation to gully your attraction to caller revelations of imaginable terms fixing successful the rental marketplace by landlords who usage technologies similar YieldStar,” Champagne wrote. “These technologies acceptable prices that tin beryllium higher than people competitory prices.”

Champagne’s telephone is not the archetypal urging the bureau to instrumentality action, with the NDP making a akin petition successful September pursuing an antitrust suit filed successful the U.S.

In August, the U.S. Justice Department filed a suit against existent property institution RealPage Inc., which owns YieldStar, accusing it of an amerciable strategy that allows landlords to coordinate to hike rental prices.

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The suit alleged the institution was violating antitrust laws done its algorithm that landlords usage to get recommended rental prices for millions of apartments crossed the country.

Reports by The Canadian Press and CBC cited statements from the institution denying the allegations made by American instrumentality enforcement.

In his letter, Champagne said the national authorities supported the usage of caller technologies but would instrumentality enactment to support Canadians from uses that “seek to instrumentality vantage of them and disempower them.”

The latest rental study from Rentals.ca and Urbanation recovered mean asking rents roseate by 2.1 per cent year-over-year, the lowest complaint since October 2021, though they noted smaller markets were seeing upward unit connected rents which could adhd to affordability concerns successful tiny cities.

— with files from The Canadian Press