[djyaz1200]

A key problem with rent pricing is that a form of price fixing is imposed by fair housing law in a way that educated folks know how to circumvent, but many do not.

When a lease is advertised at X price, it is not legal to offer one monthly price to one tenant and a different one to another, so no negotiating can occur. This also allows smart landlords to price fix without software because all rates are known since the posted rate is the rate. This inhibits true price discovery.

The cheat code is to ask for free months and spread that discount over the lease term. However, this creates a situation where, at the end of the lease, the landlord has you set at the regular month price (or higher), and you have little leverage. Also your good deal is unknown to others who will continue to overpay.

Attacking a software is an easy out, attacking the system that artificially increases rents in the whole system by outlawing more aggressive tenant negotiation is the hard problem.

[bluGill]

> This also allows smart landlords to price fix without software because all rates are known since the posted rate is the rate.

The rates change monthly though, and smart landlords were already changing their rent every month.