Antitrust lawsuit accuses real estate companies of helping landlords increase profits

WASHINGTON STATE — The state of Washington, along with eight other state attorneys general and the federal government, has just joined an antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, accusing the real estate software company and landlords of illegally colluding to increase profits.

RealPage is a real estate software company that, according to its website, “delivers a unified, streamlined system that saves landlords time and money.” Their property management software, OneSite, allows “employees to access multiple products simultaneously and receive digital financial summary reports,” according to a company blog post.

The attorneys general who filed this antitrust lawsuit allege that RealPage uses technology to eliminate competition.

RealPage is based in Texas but has an office in Seattle.

According to a Washington Post analysis, Washington has some of the highest rents in the country, with drastic increases over the past five years above the national average. That report states that rents have increased about 19% nationwide since 2019.

However, this analysis found a 41% increase in rents in Chelan County.

According to this analysis, rents increased by more than 30% in Skagit, Benton and Spokane counties and by more than 25% in Pierce, Snohomish, Whatcom, Walla Walla and Thurston counties during the same period.

“The reason for this is RealPage’s conduct,” Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson told KOMO News.

In this new antitrust lawsuit filed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, the company is accused of using this mathematical algorithm to adjust rents.

“Competing landlords have agreed to provide RealPage with their most sensitive, nonpublic information on a daily basis, including rental rates, lease terms and projected vacancy rates,” Garland said in announcing the lawsuit. “Americans should not have to pay more rent just because a company has found a new way to collude with landlords and break the law.”

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“The software then gives landlords daily price recommendations, eliminating the need to guess what competing landlords are doing,” said Deputy Attorney General Benjamin Mizer in announcing the lawsuit.

“One of their prospects was very excited about the product and this landlord literally said this is classic price fixing,” Ferguson said.

He said the lawsuit involves 800,000 rental contracts in Washington state. KOMO News asked Ferguson, “Aren’t the rents publicly disclosed?”

“No, that’s the whole point here, that RealPage uses private, non-public information from landlords and then uses that information to make suggestions about rent levels,” he replied.

The Justice Department said the lawsuit followed a years-long “careful” investigation.

KOMO News also asked Ferguson if the landlords who signed those 800,000 leases in Washington could also be part of this lawsuit.

He declined to go into the details of the lawsuit at this time, but told KOMO News: “Don’t be surprised if our lawsuit is amended down the road to include other defendants, but for now we’re focused on RealPage itself.”

Rent is making up an ever-larger share of American wages. A quarter of all U.S. households, about 10.4 million, had to spend more than half of their income on rent in 2021. By 2022, that number rose to 12.1 million.

The lawsuit also quotes a RealPage vice president as saying, “It’s better for everyone to succeed than for us to try to essentially compete with each other in a way that de facto weakens the industry.”

The aim of this lawsuit is to get a judge to put an end to the exchange of confidential, non-public competitive information and price fixing.

In a statement, RealPage said the Justice Department’s demands were “baseless and would do nothing to make housing more affordable.”