Jesse Jones: DOJ and Washington AG file lawsuit against Real Page

SEATTLE — The government is accusing a company named RealPage of writing software landlords use to keep rents artificially high.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland filed the anti-trust lawsuit today. “We allege that this software is developed, marketed, and sold to enable landlords to sidestep vigorous competition in  the rental market”, Garland said.

Bob Ferguson is one of eight Attorney’s General joining the Department of Justice in the lawsuit.

He says the RealPage software-is not the “smoke filled room” where price fixers gathered in the “old days” to stick it to the little man.

“What’s going on is a bad. Actors sometimes find new technologies to engage in that kind of illegal activity. In other words, it’s not always, getting together in the boardroom and hashing it out. Nowadays, they can use technology like RealPage that takes nonpublic information, private information, proprietary information from different landlords, puts it all together and provides them suggested rate prices that actually result in higher rents and less competition for consumers.”

In a statement a RealPage executive says, “We believe the claims brought by DOJ are devoid of merit and will do nothing to make housing more affordable.  We intend to vigorously defend ourselves against these accusations.” RealPage is a giant in the real estate market. Ferguson claims an estimated 800 thousand leases in Washington were determined by the company’s pricing software in the past seven years.

The number in just Seattle?

“In Seattle, where there are about 300,000, multifamily apartments in Seattle, about half of them now use RealPage”, says Lee Hepner senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project.

He adds, “We have seen the housing crisis result in rents that are 51% higher than they were in 2016. And a good part of that may be attributable to the software algorithms recommending those high rents.”

King County Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda told us back in April-the impact RealPage had on just one Seattle community, Belltown.

Mosqueda tells me, “70% of the rental units that are offered in Belltown are offered only through ten companies. Those ten companies, those corporate landlords use RealPage. We have seen the costs of rental units increase by 55%. That’s $1,200 increase in just 2021 to 2022.”

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