RealPage Settles Dispute with Justice Department
A real estate platform previously accused of being part of a “housing cartel” has come to an agreement with the Department of Justice after a lengthy legal battle spanning over a year and a half.
This settlement restricts certain features of the app that many renters have found to be unfair. In a 2024 lawsuit, a resident of a well-known building in Jersey City, New Jersey, claimed that the landlord was sharing confidential information, such as vacancy statistics, through the platform.
According to renters, this shared data was causing rent prices to rise significantly, effectively keeping them locked in the same price range across the city since landlords were utilizing the same algorithm for setting rates.
In November 2023, the Attorney General of Washington, D.C., also filed a separate complaint targeting 14 landlords managing over 50,000 rental units in the district. AG Brian Schwalb stated that “RealPage is facilitating a housing cartel.”
As a result of the ongoing scrutiny, RealPage has now accepted terms that essentially halt them from adjusting prices or using competitor data to establish real-time rents. They can no longer create “hyperlocalized pricing that drives up rents” and must eliminate features that hinder landlords from lowering rent prices.
According to Abigail Slater, Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division, this settlement aims to reinstate market-driven rent settings instead of relying on hidden algorithms.
Interestingly, a press release from RealPage noted that the resolution did not involve any admission of wrongdoing or payment of fines. However, they will be subject to independent monitoring over the next three years to ensure compliance with the new regulations regarding data collection and usage.
Stephen Wiseman, a partner at Gibson Dunn and a former deputy commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, reiterated that the company had acted without fault, attributing the challenges to misinformation about how the software operates. He emphasized that their use of “aggregated, anonymized, non-public data” actually led to lower rents and fostered a more competitive market atmosphere.
Aiden Buzzetti, president of the Bull Moose Project, shared his support for the settlement, expressing hope that it would protect renters from illegal price manipulation. Buzzetti also praised efforts by the Trump administration in holding companies accountable for potential legal violations.
