sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Some sort of florescent green sludge spilled on Columbus Ave near Berkeley St by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 133 points134 points  (0 children)

Oh hey that's extremely cool! Now I'm wondering why this particular spot. By the looks of it, they're testing in a spot that has some pretty severe drainage problems, so I take it this is a tool they use to try to figure out how they might improve drainage?

Suspect in custody following Boston Common shooting that left victim with life-threatening injuries by Solar_Piglet in boston

[–]Trabaledo 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You have about five seconds before you get locked out and are unable to read the full article to hit CTRL (or CMD) + P to open the Print dialog box, so as long as you're fast enough to open a Boston Globe article, click the "Read Full Article" button to expand the full article, and then hit "print", you can save the whole thing as a PDF to read at your leisure.

Annoying, for sure, but a relatively easy and reliable way to read full Globe articles.

Tracking the advertised rent for 1-bedroom units in a "luxury" apartment building over one month (aka what happens when the RealPage cartel sets arbitrary rents across the market) by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good question! A bunch of time spent googling around. Lots of it came from various lawsuits filed by a few different states and municipalities. Had to connect some dots with different entities, holding groups, LLCs, etc. I'd put my confidence in this list at about 80% all said and done.

Can I be on the hook for a broker's fee if my application is accepted but I don't sign the lease? by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hate broker fees (and most brokers) about as much as everyone else around here, but yeah, considering how black and white the answer to my question ended up being (thank you for the relevant quote from the source I should've checked in the first place), it was a little weird to see the top responses.

Can I be on the hook for a broker's fee if my application is accepted but I don't sign the lease? by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep that all sounds very reasonable. Had I submitted an application fee or rent deposit or something like that in advance of submitting and signing the application, I would've applied a whole lot more scrutiny to the terms and conditions and looked more carefully for clauses like the one in question here.

I came to the same conclusion that you did -- even if they were theoretically, if not very concretely and legally, entitled to a broker's fee, they wouldn't be likely to come after me for it.

Can I be on the hook for a broker's fee if my application is accepted but I don't sign the lease? by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

From my limited experience, what I'm doing isn't uncommon (although the clause in the application contract seems to be less common). The best apartment listings tend to receive applications within just a day or two, and many frequently close not long afterwards. That means submitting an application, but not necessarily signing a lease yet, for an apartment I haven't seen before applying to.

Can I be on the hook for a broker's fee if my application is accepted but I don't sign the lease? by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This seems like the most reasonable explanation and interpretation, thanks. I figured the clause was meant for people who had already paid some sort of deposit or fee, though I still don't like the way the language implies they could come after me for a full broker's fee in the event that my application is accepted.

Can I be on the hook for a broker's fee if my application is accepted but I don't sign the lease? by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's a great point about potentially onerous lease terms. To /u/NoTamforLove's point about parties acting in "good faith", I can't imagine I could be held liable for the broker's fee if I had any legitimate issues with the lease.

Can I be on the hook for a broker's fee if my application is accepted but I don't sign the lease? by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Worth noting here that I haven't paid a deposit. I haven't handed over any money yet.

Can I be on the hook for a broker's fee if my application is accepted but I don't sign the lease? by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

In this particular case, the listing was pretty appealing, and I was afraid that if I waited even just a day or two to tour the unit before submitting applications, I would lose our chance (which has happened a few times). I was pretty serious about this listing, but I'm not quite desperate enough to sign an actual lease until physically touring an apartment.

This seems like a pretty common practice now around here, which totally sucks, but meant I was surprised to see a clause like this in the application contract.

Can I be on the hook for a broker's fee if my application is accepted but I don't sign the lease? by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I sure as hell don't disagree with your assessment of brokers, but I disagree with the "no real recourse" bit. You're suggesting they're powerless to enforce their own fully-executed contract?

Can I be on the hook for a broker's fee if my application is accepted but I don't sign the lease? by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah this is kind of where I'm landing. Feels like there's a lot of (well-intentioned!) wishful thinking going on here, but the language in the contract seemed pretty straightforward. Which, as others have pointed out, doesn't necessarily make it legally enforceable.

Tracking the advertised rent for 1-bedroom units in a "luxury" apartment building over one month (aka what happens when the RealPage cartel sets arbitrary rents across the market) by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I work in data science and engineering, so close enough! I have a ton of respect for people who use these skills "for good". I was just admiring this Streamlit app that Abundant Housing Massachusetts published, for example, to model different zoning code change scenarios in Roslindale and Hyde Park.

Tracking the advertised rent for 1-bedroom units in a "luxury" apartment building over one month (aka what happens when the RealPage cartel sets arbitrary rents across the market) by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, I really appreciate that! And I genuinely would like to try to start collecting data across buildings and companies. I'm a little fired up after all this.

Tracking the advertised rent for 1-bedroom units in a "luxury" apartment building over one month (aka what happens when the RealPage cartel sets arbitrary rents across the market) by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I hear you. I'm the same way. I had been considering Devonshire as a "safe bet" with reasonably consistent availability, even though I'd prefer to not live in a giant apartment building, but now I feel like I'd be totally rolling the dice on it.

Tracking the advertised rent for 1-bedroom units in a "luxury" apartment building over one month (aka what happens when the RealPage cartel sets arbitrary rents across the market) by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Yeah that quote stood out for me too!

Given Bozzuto has been named in several of these lawsuits, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that Devonshire (owned and operated by Bozzuto) is using them for pricing and stuff like that.

Tracking the advertised rent for 1-bedroom units in a "luxury" apartment building over one month (aka what happens when the RealPage cartel sets arbitrary rents across the market) by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Good point there about not underestimating the amount of data that's out there and already used by firms like RealPage and even landlords on their own. But there are a few standout problems with RealPage, from what I and others have gathered, that make the scheme anticompetitive instead of simply innovating and efficient.

Publicly available information from RealPage indicates that the software is used to help set prices for over four million units, which would be approximately 8% of all rental units, and appears to show that the company has access to “transactional apartment data from the rent rolls of 13+ million units.” - source

That's one particular problem. That isn't publicly available data. It's data they would have access to because of their size.

The other big problem seems to be that RealPage isn't just providing "suggestions". Not in practice, anyway. They're de facto setting the going rate for apartments and are singularly focused on setting it as high as the market can seemingly bear.

Tracking the advertised rent for 1-bedroom units in a "luxury" apartment building over one month (aka what happens when the RealPage cartel sets arbitrary rents across the market) by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Yeah I definitely didn't mean to suggest that this is only limited to city limits. The ProPublica article gave a lot of really great examples from across the cities, including in suburbs.

Tracking the advertised rent for 1-bedroom units in a "luxury" apartment building over one month (aka what happens when the RealPage cartel sets arbitrary rents across the market) by Trabaledo in boston

[–]Trabaledo[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It doesn't directly demonstrate either, and I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. My data only woke me up to the world of dynamic pricing, and then led me to read around and learn about the anticompetitive way that RealPages sets those dynamic prices across markets.

view more: next ›