A brief history of price setting and information warfare
By John Jarvis
We live in an age of data and AI is weaponizing that data. Depending on where you sit, all that data is either your best friend or your fiercest foe.
Imagine you are shopping for a new car. You call up your local dealership to find out the price of their new models and they say, “Well, the price is withheld, but we can talk about that when you get here.” Or maybe you and your newlywed are house hunting, you find a home you like, you call the listing agent and ask about price, only to be told, “Well, the price is withheld, but we can talk about that when you get here.”
To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, you would surely think something is afoot.
The price tag was first invented by the Quakers in the 1870s on the moral belief that everyone should pay the same price for an item, as, according to the Quakers, all are equal before God. Prior to the price tag, haggling was the only way to establish price. Some were better than others at haggling, so the price of items tended to vary widely. As the saying goes, all things old are new again, and now we have commercial property landlords listing their asking rents as “withheld,” preferring to revert to that old-school haggling model.
In modern terms, there are two concepts at play here: pricing transparency and information asymmetry.
Pricing transparency is pretty straightforward, as the name implies. With pricing transparency, all buyers know the price of an item, with some form of a “price tag” on full display for all to see. This advantages the buyer community, with buyers able to price-compare between sellers, forcing sellers to compete on the basis of the asking price.
Information asymmetry is more subtle. A buyer typically buys one item, while a seller is literally in the business of selling their stuff. Of course, they hope to sell lots and lots of their stuff to lots and lots of buyers. Think of a commercial property landlord who owns millions of square feet with thousands of tenants and tenant transactions, compared to, for example, a CPA that signs a new lease for space in the building once every five to seven years. There is no public reporting of lease transactions, therefore aggregate transaction data is largely unknown to all but the landlords (and those few of us who track it), and the landlord community would very much like to keep it that way.
Do landlords really play games in the interest of higher rents? Of course they do. Remember that every $0.10 in rent is worth $20 to the landlord. I wrote about this particular alchemy in my article titled Pennies, Nickels, Dimes & Dollars.
Here is an example pulled from recent headlines:
RealPage is a Texas-based software company using property management software and data analytics to improve the performance of investment properties. According to their website, the software is “designed to maximize operational efficiency, empower decision-making and deliver proven NOI growth” for property owners. Apparently it works, as RealPage annual revenue is estimated between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion. Unfortunately, their software includes certain algorithmic rent-setting features that landed RealPage in the crosshairs of a Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against six large landlords for participating in algorithmic pricing schemes that harmed tenants.
The DOJ complaint alleged that the landlords coordinated through a variety of means, including:
- Directly communicating with competitors’ senior managers about rents, occupancy and other competitively sensitive topics
- Regularly conducting “call arounds”
- Participating in “user groups” hosted by RealPage
As of late 2025, a few of the defendants have agreed to settlements, such as Greystar, the largest apartment manager in the U.S. with over $300 billion in assets globally, wherein they admitted no wrongdoing, but agreed to stop using anticompetitive algorithms that rely on nonpublic competitor data and to refrain from sharing sensitive pricing information with rivals.
| Concept | Who it Favors | The “Weapon” |
| Pricing Transparency | The Tenant | The “Price Tag” (Open Data) |
| Information Asymmetry | The Landlord | “Price Withheld” (Closed Data) |
In other words, AI doesn’t just calculate rent; it predicts the maximum point of pain a tenant will accept. If landlords are actively using AI (and their listing agents) to exploit the information asymmetry and lack of pricing transparency, what can business owners do?
You can hire the right partner. Today more than ever, there is a critical role for a strong advisor-advocate to navigate commercial real estate transactions on behalf of buyers and tenants. The idea that the same agents who represent the building owners can also serve in this role on behalf of buyers and tenants is simply ludicrous. Sometimes when we talk about the conflict of interest that arises when a firm seeks to act as a dual agent, i.e., representing both landlord and tenant or buyer and seller in transactions, it can make people uncomfortable. I get that. Those dual agents aren’t bad people, after all. And know this. Tolerating the conventional dual agency model stifles pricing transparency and exacerbates information asymmetry. Did you know those dual agents are actually forbidden from sharing with you any information that could be harmful to their other “client?” They are literally forbidden from sharing with you information that they know would be extremely helpful in your negotiations. That’s your agent we’re talking about. And they are forbidden from helping you. Let’s be clear: a dual agent is, by law, a neutral facilitator, not an advocate.
So yes, maybe you can find a better partner to represent your interests in your next commercial real estate negotiation. When you see asking rents listed as “withheld,” you should see it as a sign of the times, and a “stop sign” perhaps. You should see it for what it is, information warfare, and it will only increase in the age of AI. Welcome to the future. Don’t let data (or those darn dual agents) be your downfall.
