14 Big Landlords Used Software To Collude on Rent Prices, DC Lawsuit Says

DC's attorney general has sued 14 of the city's largest landlord firms, claiming they entered into agreements with a property management software firm to keep rent prices high in a city with a housing affordability crisis. From a report: The complaint, filed earlier today by Attorney General Brian Schwalb, focuses on the multifamily landlords' use of software from Texas-based firm RealPage, which suggests rental prices based on a pricing algorithm. Key to those models, according to the suit, is the data fed in from the landlords and the pressure RealPage puts on them to stick to the code-derived rental rates. "RealPage and the defendant landlords illegally colluded to artificially raise rents by participating in a centralized, anticompetitive scheme, causing District residents to pay millions of dollars above fair market prices," Schwalb said in a release tied to the complaint. The collaboration "amounts to a District-wide housing cartel," Schwalb said, noting that "well over" 30 percent of buildings with five or more units use RealPage's software, along with 60 percent of 50-unit-plus buildings. Across a wider Washington-Arlington-Alexandria area, more than 90 percent of units in large buildings are subject to RealPage pricing, according to Schwalb's office. RealPage's rent management service, YieldStar, has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. RealPage and the property management firms utilizing their software were the subject of a class-action suit filed in the Southern District of California in October 2022, alleging the "cartel" artificially inflated prices. The Department of Justice's Antitrust Division opened an investigation in November 2022 into RealPage's role in potential landlord collusion.

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