For years, a software company owned by a Miami billionaire’s private equity firm has been helping some of the country’s largest landlords spike their profits by fixing and inflating rents, violating state and federal laws banning collusion among property owners, according to lawsuits filed by tenants and state prosecutors across the U.S.
RealPage, which offers software to suggest the price of rents and draw up leases, is the subject of an antitrust investigation by Florida’s attorney general, one of several digging into the company’s business practices. Dozens of lawsuits — including two in Miami-Dade County — have been filed against RealPage by tenants throughout the country who say their rents have been significantly increased by the company’s clients.
The software — used to to price about half of the 300,000 multifamily rental units in South Florida’s tri-county area, according to one lawsuit — relies in part on private information shared by landlords to recommend the price of rents, which critics say flouts laws meant to stop property managers from colluding. It was banned last month from use in San Francisco’s housing market, and reportedly is under the scrutiny of the U.S. Department of Justice.