Lawsuits filed by state and federal authorities charge that software company RealPage violated antitrust law and pushed apartment prices artificially high for renters across the country.
“Few things are as important as our homes – but too many North Carolinians struggle to afford their apartment,” said North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein. “Rents are already too high. I will not tolerate any company scheming to block healthy competition among landlords. It raises rent, and it’s illegal.”
Stein was joined in filing the lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Attorneys General of California, Connecticut, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.
RealPage sells “revenue management software” to property managers across the country. In exchange for buying and using that software, property managers share detailed, nonpublic, competitively sensitive data with RealPage that includes information about units coming on the market, the rent they are charging, and discounts.
RealPage uses this nonpublic information to suggest a price that property managers should charge for their apartments to make more money. Then, RealPage uses a range of strategies to induce its clients to automatically accept those recommendations.
When they do, prices for comparable apartments become artificially inflated, and renters aren’t able to find a better deal by shopping around, the suit alleges.
"Difference between stability and eviction"
“Between 2010 and 2020 the median rent in Wake County jumped up 40 percent,” said Shinica Thomas, Wake County Board of Commissioners Chair. “That costs families an extra $4,200 a year. For a household that’s struggling to make ends meet, that can be the difference between stability and eviction.”
“Access to affordable housing options is becoming increasingly difficult,” said Monica Burks, Policy Counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending. “Anti-competitive practices that inflate already high housing costs disadvantage individuals and families working hard to secure this basic need.”
Today’s lawsuit is the result of a year-long investigation into RealPage. Stein and the other AGs are asking the court to stop RealPage and the property managers it works with from sharing this non-public information and scheming to inflate rent prices.
A copy of the complaint is available here.