Two SF Anti-Displacement Coalition member groups [people. power. media] and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project have released groundbreaking research on the Landlord Tech industry. From tenant screening to surveillance, smart homes to corporate “membership housing,” PropTech is reshaping property management and the tenant experience. On the other end, tech seeks to “disrupt” real estate transactions, making these investments more liquid and even more vulnerable to speculative bubbles that generate ever greater profits for private equity, venture capital, real estate investment trusts (REITs), and landlords & developers. As a result, our homes, our rent, even our debt are abstracted and monetized, not the public good and personal anchor we know them to be.
Read the excellent exposé “The Wild West of Landlord Technology: Property Tech is Ruining Your Community and You Don’t Even Know It,” by {people. power. media] and the equally in-depth article “COVID-19 Crisis Capitalism Comes to Real Estate” by Erin McElroy, Meredith Whittaker, and Genevieve Fried in the Boston Review.
We are particularly worried that proptech is leading to new forms of housing injustice in the wake of COVID-19—expanding surveillance, data accumulation, and algorithmic means testing—in ways that increase the power of landlords and further disempower tenants and those seeking shelter.
Erin McElroy, Meredith Whittaker, and Genevieve Fried in their May 2020 Article for Boston Review
For more information and articles, visit Landlord Tech Watch, a website started by the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, and fill out their survey to report landlord tech in your building or neighborhood.