WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ), along with 10 state attorneys general, has filed an amended complaint in its antitrust lawsuit against RealPage. The complaint targets six of the nation’s largest property managers, alleging that the companies used RealPage’s pricing algorithms to share sensitive data and coordinate pricing strategies, which the DOJ states resulted in artificially inflated rents.
The DOJ stated that the landlords had colluded with one another by directly communicating with competitors’ senior managers about sensitive topics such as rents and occupancy; conducting “call arounds” to discuss sensitive information and pricing strategies; and participating in “user groups” hosted by RealPage, where landlords would allegedly discuss how to modify the software’s pricing methodology as well as their own pricing strategies.
The DOJ’s co-plaintiffs are the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington.
The six landlords included in the amended complaint are Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC; Blackstone’s LivCor LLC; Camden Property Trust; Cushman & Wakefield Inc. (formerly operating independently as Pinnacle); Willow Bridge Property Co. (formerly Lincoln Residential); and Cortland Management LLC (Cortland). Altogether, the six companies manage approximately 1.3 million apartment units across 43 states and Washington, D.C., most of which are also owned by the companies.
Additionally, the DOJ filed a proposed consent decree that would resolve the department’s claims against Cortland. The decree would require that Cortland cooperate in the DOJ’s investigation and litigation and be barred from using competitors’ sensitive data for pricing and using third-party algorithms without a court-appointed monitor.
The proposed consent decree will undergo a 60-day comment period, after which the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina may judge whether the decree is in the public interest and enter the final judgement. Cortland manages more than 80,000 rental units in 13 states.
The DOJ filed the original civil lawsuit against RealPage in August 2023. RealPage denied the DOJ’s allegations in the original case and has continuously defended its practices. In a statement released Dec. 6, RealPage stated that the DOJ had closed a separate criminal investigation into the pricing practices of the rental housing industry.
RealPage is a real estate software company based in Richardson, Texas, roughly 15 miles north of Dallas. Founded in 1998, RealPage provides property management technology for about 24 million rental units across North America, Europe and Asia.