> software in TFA speeds up the process, but doesn't set market clearing price
This software can affect the market price beyond just accelerating the speed at which it reaches equilibrium. The software can help create an inefficient market where suppliers of housing are no longer competing against each other and instead all, together, take a 5-20% hit on "volume" for a larger increase in price that more than offsets the rate of empty units.
Similar to OPEC when OPEC was overwhelmingly dominant (before shale oil/shale gas explosion in USA/Russia).
In a competitive market without this software, each individual player would try harder to reach 0% vacancy because each marginal unit sold would be nearly pure profit, and this could drive prices lower than leaving any units empty.