This only works if realpage is causing landlords to leave units vacant. Otherwise the market clearing prices don't change since supply is fixed in the short run. There are accusation of realpage telling landlords to leave units vacant but I'd like to see some better evidence and numbers.
I don't disagree that in most cities with any kind of upward economic development there's an inherent market pressure increasing prices - people will want to live in a city and there's a limited supply. However, what realpage is doing is distorting the upward market force, making the increase steeper than it normally would be.
One could make the argument that this is just capitalism and applying market forces to human lives is always the moral thing to do. I don't believe it is, I care more about the human outcomes of the systems we use. Ultimately, the underlying problem is the lack of housing supply, which is different from Realpage enabling the collusion between different independent landlords exploiting the shortage in housing supply even further.
