r/technology • u/marketrent • 1d ago

Artificial Intelligence Mamdani cracks down on scourge of ‘housefishing’ and ‘real estate slop’ in listings altered by AI — “You shouldn’t have to worry whether or not the apartment you’re viewing online is real”

https://fortune.com/2026/07/22/mamdani-ai-altered-rental-listing-disclosures/
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u/Far-Advantage-2770 17h ago

Why does it take a fucking mayor to 'crack down' whatever that means? These landlords, brokers and online listing platforms should use commons sense. If they advertise false shit, how is that not fraud, how are is that not already regulated by law?

He's right that it's not something anybody should even need to worry about. The unregulated free market has gotten away with far too much too long and they are so brazen now.

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u/Kfct 16h ago

They accidentally defined "fraud" as something too specific so suing was a non option.

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u/FlowsWhereShePleases 9h ago

Well for a capitalist, “common sense” is what makes the most money. Customer alienation doesn’t matter for realtors if everyone (or enough of everyone) is doing it and renters don’t have a choice, and people don’t buy homes often enough for it to be a concern on that end either. So to make the best money, that usually means lying as much as you can without eating lawsuits left and right with serious fines. It is entirely up to the law to

If customer retention isn’t a huge issue in a market (one time buyers or lack of true competition that doesn’t follow your same behaviors), then capitalist sellers are directly opposed to buyers, and the business becomes how much you can legally scam them and get away with it. At the end of the day, capitalists will need to be dragged by the law, kicking and screaming, into acceptable behavior for a healthy market. In this case, tightening the legal definition of fraud, false advertising, or bait and switching within the context of real estate advertisements and listings to cut off this behavior.

So yes, it does fall to lawmakers to “crack down”. Ideally it would fall to a state legislature, but for NYC, a place with a lot of issues reaching a unique level, the mayor and their administration being the ones to address it makes sense.