Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker entered office in January with one of the strongest housing agendas of any big-city mayor. And her agenda is sorely needed after the previous administration’s neglect on this matter. Unlike Mayor Kenney’s disregard for supply side needs, Mayor Parker has pledged to help generate 30,000 new units by building and renovating in areas where housing is most needed.

Other major cities, like Austin, have proved that affordable housing attainment is best achieved through increases in the construction of housing options, and, under Mayor Parker’s leadership, Philadelphia could be next in line to reap the benefits of such a pro-competitive solution.

Yet, some members of Philadelphia’s city council have different plans for addressing housing market concerns, and their ideas are truly befuddling. These council members seem to be taking cues from cities where the housing situation has only gotten worse, notably New York City. NYC is notorious for rent control and, over the years, such controls have disincentivized both the creation and maintenance of affordable housing units. If these council members have their way, the same will be true for Philadelphia. 

The bill that council members are proposing undercut the mayor’s ambitious plan by imposing a ban on a widely used business software program that aids in calculating and estimating residential rental prices.  Similar to platforms like Zillow, used in the real estate sector, RealPage is a platform landlords use to share information about their properties and receive recommendations for rental prices. And while council members claim this platform is instigating price fixing, it is important to remember that recommended prices are simply that, recommendations. At the end of the day, it is up to the landlord and the tenant to negotiate the terms of a lease. 

Council members focusing their attention on making it harder to be a landlord rather than increasing options and competition for rental units lacks common sense. Indeed, even if the council were to ban this platform, landlords would still seek the attainment of rental price information and go about it as best they can. Having an awareness of market prices is a necessity in the business realm, and landlords would fenagle their own mechanisms for sharing and getting the data, but likely with less confidence and accuracy — which could even be to the detriment of their tenants.

The position of serving as a landlord is rather unappealing these days, thanks to inflation and costly zoning regulations. Fewer landlords along with fewer rental units spells disaster for cities in need of affordable, let alone available, housing options.

Mayor Parker is confident that high rental costs could be curtailed if the development of new properties and empowerment of those who manage them could improve. She is right and Philadelphia is in need right now.

By many measures, Philadelphia is the nation’s poorest large city, with a poverty rate of about 20 percent. As a consequence, Philadelphia’s proportion of renters who are “rent-burdened” — spending 30 percent or more of their income on rent — has hovered around 50 percent for the last two decades. That’s one of the highest rates among the ten largest U.S. cities. 

For some time now, Philadelphia’s economic growth and development has been driving up housing overall, but the pandemic along with inflation rates have heightened costs for those most in need of housing. In particular, rent prices have increased by almost 40 percent since 2009 as of late last year and some analysts say that rent inflation is one of the biggest economic problems our country is currently facing. 

Thus, Mayor Parker’s plan to prioritize affordable housing by increasing the supply and options available is where council member effort should be spent. The banning of pricing software, on the other hand, is a waste of time and energy and, therefore, taxpayer dollars.

There are no shortcuts to ending Philadelphia’s housing shortage and affordability crisis, but Philadelphians should feel good about the fact that Mayor Parker is on the right track and it would be wise for council members to support her housing agenda.

Dr. Kimberlee Josephson is an associate professor of business at Lebanon Valley College and serves as an adjunct research fellow with the Consumer Choice Center. She teaches courses on global sustainability, international marketing, and workplace diversity; and her research and op-eds have appeared in various outlets.

Follow her on X @dr_josephson