U.S. landlords who use RealPage products to set prices on rental apartments are facing accusations of collusion.
  • A group of lawsuits accuse large landlords of price-fixing the market rate of rent in the United States
  • A complaint filed by Washington D.C.’s Attorney General alleges 14 landlords in the district are sharing competitively sensitive data through RealPage, a real estate software provider
  • RealPage recommends prices for roughly 4.5 million housing units in the United States
  • RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions

A group of renters in the U.S. say their landlords are using software to deliver inflated rent hikes.

“We’ve been told as tenants by employees of Equity that the software takes empathy out of the equation. So they can charge whatever the software tells them to charge,” said Kevin Weller, a tenant at Portside Towers since 2021.

Tenants say the management started to increase prices substantially after giving renters concessions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • tygerprints@kbin.social
    241·
    10 months ago

    This is heartening in some ways, at least it’s good news for certain people in that area of the U.S. Here in Utah, tenants have NO rights, and they are told that whenever they sign a lease. There are no options for tenants to retalitate against anything a landlord decides to do.

    Of course, almost 100% of our “esteemed” legislatures here are landlords, so they are the one who pass the laws. And in Utah, a landlord is allowed to enter your premises and abscond with any item of furniture or equipment they so desire (if they want your stereo, it’s theirs) and there is nothing a tenant can do. Tenants aren’t even allowed by law to contact a landlord’s place of business, under penalty of fines and jail sentences.

    Our legislatures are strengthening landlord laws this session, so things will only get worse and worse for renters here.