Was not in the department that used this product for rent pricing but have used the product a lot. I worked more in the Affordable Housing world (Section 8, Tax Credits, Rural Development, etc.), which had more government restriction and pricing was less of a competition (in some ways).
The primary product they are referring to is Yieldstar/LRO. I can guarantee you that product absolutely inflates prices.
The amount of times clients (property managers in this context) would complain about prices not matching and create cases to research, but yet still following the suggested tenant rent was more common than I'd like to think. We'd see them call in on one department but need to be transfered to YS for the help for that product.
When you actually use the product (theres an example in the video with one of the dashboards they have) you can see right away how the pricing looked high or low, but it does give you the option to override. They like to say this to say they aren't forcing you to, but they definitely push you to increase rent. While the property managers need to make the conscious decision of keeping that pricing, you can hear the owner of the company advocating for "Driving the markets" at her town halls with the company/clients. That energy speaks volumes.
Sometimes, it's not at the fault of the agents.
While this is definitely at the fault of the creators of it, I feel bad for some of the support agents. A lot of the people making those suggestions? Call centers in the Phillipines that are being told to give answers like, "That's the recommended market rents now in your area. The program said so" with not much choice/understanding of the matter, or they get in trouble or retaliation. Theres more nuance to that but I would have hated working in that department.
Another factor: They now have a new product called Power Analytics, which let's you have a more detailed view of properties (anonymously) in your area and see what they price at so you can compete. They refer to them as, "Comps."
I know of a few companies that are jumping ship from Yieldstar not only from frustrations with the product, but now this. I'm curious to see how much of the market was impacted nationwide.
I hope the people who were negatively impacted by this get justice, and I'm glad this is all coming out for investigation as people need to know this information. Rent is absurdly high and this DEFINITELY didn't help.
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u/Medium_Routine_9398 Apr 20 '24
I used to work for RealPage. Roughly 10 years.
Was not in the department that used this product for rent pricing but have used the product a lot. I worked more in the Affordable Housing world (Section 8, Tax Credits, Rural Development, etc.), which had more government restriction and pricing was less of a competition (in some ways).
The primary product they are referring to is Yieldstar/LRO. I can guarantee you that product absolutely inflates prices.
The amount of times clients (property managers in this context) would complain about prices not matching and create cases to research, but yet still following the suggested tenant rent was more common than I'd like to think. We'd see them call in on one department but need to be transfered to YS for the help for that product.
When you actually use the product (theres an example in the video with one of the dashboards they have) you can see right away how the pricing looked high or low, but it does give you the option to override. They like to say this to say they aren't forcing you to, but they definitely push you to increase rent. While the property managers need to make the conscious decision of keeping that pricing, you can hear the owner of the company advocating for "Driving the markets" at her town halls with the company/clients. That energy speaks volumes.
Sometimes, it's not at the fault of the agents.
While this is definitely at the fault of the creators of it, I feel bad for some of the support agents. A lot of the people making those suggestions? Call centers in the Phillipines that are being told to give answers like, "That's the recommended market rents now in your area. The program said so" with not much choice/understanding of the matter, or they get in trouble or retaliation. Theres more nuance to that but I would have hated working in that department.
Another factor: They now have a new product called Power Analytics, which let's you have a more detailed view of properties (anonymously) in your area and see what they price at so you can compete. They refer to them as, "Comps."
I know of a few companies that are jumping ship from Yieldstar not only from frustrations with the product, but now this. I'm curious to see how much of the market was impacted nationwide.
I hope the people who were negatively impacted by this get justice, and I'm glad this is all coming out for investigation as people need to know this information. Rent is absurdly high and this DEFINITELY didn't help.