Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), with nine attorneys general, today filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against RealPage Inc. (RealPage) and five of the nation’s largest landlords for their unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing, and against RealPage for its unlawful scheme to monopolize the market for commercial revenue management software that landlords use to price apartments.
The amended lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, alleges that the conduct of RealPage, along with landlords Camden Property Trust, Cushman & Wakefield Inc. and Pinnacle Property Management Services LLC, Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC, Blackstone’s Livcor LLC, and Willow Bridge Property Company LLC deprives renters of the benefits of competition on apartment leasing terms and harms millions of Americans.
“Access to affordable housing is a basic human right. It is unacceptable that the people of Illinois should have to pay higher rental rates because a scheme to utilize new technology and break a long-standing law has stacked the odds against them,” said Raoul. “My office will continue to enforce the antitrust laws to protect competition that will give Illinois renters housing options that best meet their needs.”
The complaint alleges that RealPage contracts with competing landlords who actively participated in a scheme to set rental pricing using one another’s competitively sensitive information through common pricing algorithms. The landlords allegedly agreed to share with RealPage nonpublic information about their apartment rental rates and other lease terms to train and run RealPage’s algorithmic pricing software. This software then generates recommendations, including on apartment rental pricing and other terms, for participating landlords based on their and their rivals’ competitively sensitive information.
Raoul, the DOJ, and the other attorneys general allege that in a free market, these landlords would otherwise compete independently to attract renters based on pricing, discounts, concessions, lease terms and other dimensions of apartment leasing. The lawsuit also alleges RealPage uses this scheme and its substantial data trove to maintain a monopoly in the market for commercial revenue management software. The complaint seeks to end the illegal conduct and restore competition for the benefit of renters in Illinois and across the country.
Along with using RealPage’s anticompetitive pricing algorithms, the landlords allegedly coordinated through a variety of means, including:
Attorney General Raoul and the DOJ filed the lawsuit with attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington.
