When Shanice Sharpe moved into a one-bedroom apartment at 22 John St., in the working-class neighbourhood of Weston in the Greater Toronto Area, her r

Canadian mega landlord using AI ‘pricing scheme’ as it massively hikes rents

submited by

Style Pass

2024-09-05 02:00:02

When Shanice Sharpe moved into a one-bedroom apartment at 22 John St., in the working-class neighbourhood of Weston in the Greater Toronto Area, her rent seemed reasonable.

But since 2022, it has shot up nearly 10 per cent each year and she’s currently spending most of her monthly income on housing. “I have three jobs just to pay for my life,” she said.

The majority of her fellow tenants have faced similar hikes from the building’s Canadian owner, Dream Unlimited, which has $25 billion in assets.

Now, there’s evidence that the real estate developer is getting advice on rent increases from an AI software, YieldStar, that is currently the subject of a major U.S. government lawsuit alleging it enables landlords to artificially inflate rents and “harms millions of Americans.”

According to a document obtained by The Breach, the property manager at 22 John St. admitted to using Yieldstar “in order to calculate the estimated market rents for a given apartment.”