Officials with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and its state co-plaintiffs have announced an amended lawsuit against RealPage, accusing the company and six major landlord parent companies of manipulating rental prices through an algorithmic pricing scheme that has contributed to the nation’s growing housing and rental crisis.
According to the January 7, 2025 lawsuit announcement, the complaint alleges that Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC (Greystar), Blackstone’s LivCor LLC (LivCor), Camden Property Trust (Camden), Cushman & Wakefield Inc. and Pinnacle Property Management Services (Cushman), Willow Bridge Property Company LLC (Willow Bridge), and Cortland Management LLC (Cortland), participated in an unlawful scheme meant to decrease competition among landlords in the apartment pricing market.
If this is the first time you’ve heard of them, you may be initially asking who, or what, even is RealPage?
RealPage provides software solutions for the real estate industry with a primary focus on property management, leasing, and pricing — much of which can be done without any manual human intervention. However, criticisms against RealPage have been mounting as it faces legal scrutiny due to its use of algorithmic pricing. These algorithms, while intended to improve profitability for management companies, have been accused of enabling price-fixing by allowing landlords to share sensitive compeitive data, potentially violating antitrust laws, and keeping rents artificially higher than they could be.