The U.S. Department of Justice, in collaboration with state co-plaintiffs, has filed an amended complaint in its antitrust lawsuit against RealPage and six major landlords. The landlords are accused of engaging in algorithmic pricing schemes that allegedly harmed millions of renters by reducing competition in apartment pricing.
The complaint names Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC, Blackstone's LivCor LLC, Camden Property Trust, Cushman & Wakefield Inc., Willow Bridge Property Company LLC, and Cortland Management LLC as participants in the scheme. Together, these companies manage over 1.3 million units across 43 states and the District of Columbia.
Attorneys General from Illinois and Massachusetts have joined the lawsuit as co-plaintiffs, bringing the total number of state and commonwealth co-plaintiffs to ten.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki stated: "While Americans across the country struggled to afford housing, the landlords named in today’s lawsuit shared sensitive information about rental prices and used algorithms to coordinate to keep the price of rent high."
The allegations include that these landlords used each other's competitively sensitive information through common pricing algorithms provided by RealPage. Methods allegedly used include direct communication between senior managers about rents and occupancy rates, conducting "call arounds" or market surveys to share competitive data, participating in user groups hosted by RealPage to discuss pricing strategies, and sharing parameters for RealPage's software among competitors.
A proposed consent decree with Cortland aims to resolve claims against them if approved by a court. This would require Cortland's cooperation with investigations and bar it from using competitors' sensitive data for pricing models or third-party software without supervision.
The proposed consent decree will be published in the Federal Register for a 60-day comment period before final judgment can be entered by a U.S. District Court if deemed in public interest.
Co-plaintiffs include Attorneys General from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.
Greystar is based in Charleston; LivCor and Cushman & Wakefield are based in Chicago; Willow Bridge is headquartered in Dallas; Camden is located in Houston; Cortland operates out of Atlanta.