Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson partnered with a bipartisan group of eight attorneys general and the federal Department of Justice to file a lawsuit Friday, Aug. 23, accusing a national software company of conspiring with landlords to inflate rental prices.
The lawsuit accuses RealPage of sharing competitively sensitive, nonpublic data through its software with competing landlords to help them raise rents to maximize profits. An estimated 800,000 leases in Washington were priced using RealPage revenue management software since 2017.
One potential RealPage client called the company’s model “classic price fixing,” according to a news release from the state attorney general’s office.
RealPage also facilitates “user group” meetings between competing landlords, where competitive information is shared and discussions on pricing are encouraged.
As one RealPage vice president explained: “There is a greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the industry down.”