Attorneys General Sue RealPage Claiming It Drives Rental Prices Higher
A new lawsuit accuses a popular revenue management software of harming millions of renters. The Department of Justice and more than half a dozen attorneys general including North Carolina’s filed a suit against RealPage claiming it reduces competition and drives prices higher.
Landlords use RealPage to gauge how much money they can collect for an apartment by using data from surrounding apartments. Attorneys general say this is part of a scheme to reduce competition and keep rent prices high.
The group of attorneys general are accusing the rental management software company of enabling property managers to collude to charge renters higher prices.
In an 115-page lawsuit, the AG’s say real page schemes with landlords to decrease competitive apartment pricing. The software company is accused of collecting private information from landlords about how much rent they charge tenants. Landlords pay to access a price recommendation based on the data collected from other landlords.
“The problem that we see, is that landlords have all the power and renters are stuck with figuring it out and in a very dangerous way,” Jessica Morena, community organizer at Action NC focused on tenants rights.
Moreno says she would like to see lawmakers prioritize policies that support tenants.
“A lawsuit is not going to save families today or tomorrow,” Moreno said. “Policies like rent stabilization, just cause eviction, right to council, those policies that we are uplifting will will be a true benefit for people’s lives.”
In response to the lawsuit, RealPage released a new website that makes some data about apartment occupancy and asking price for rent publicly available.
In a statement on its website, RealPage says housing affordability is driven by under supply of units.
Moreno believes there’s a bigger problem at the root of the housing crisis.
“Raising the rent by more than 30%, sometimes 100%, I’ve seen in certain neighborhoods just to push people out is greed,” Moreno said. “Putting profit over people is what we see reflected in the community and the policies that we have.”
Action NC is hosting a Green Social Housing Townhall on Thursday, August 28th at 7:30pm at 3601 Central Avenue. The townhall will bring together renters, advocates, and elected officials to discuss solutions to the ongoing housing crisis.
