The U.S. Department of Justice expanded an antitrust lawsuit over rental market price fixing to include a Dallas-based management firm and five other landlords Tuesday.
The DOJ — along with 10 attorneys general in North Carolina, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington — filed the amended complaint in its lawsuit against RealPage, a Richardson-based real estate software platform.
The new complaint alleges six of the nation’s largest landlords participated in an illegal scheme allowing landlords to increase rental prices and decrease competition.
Those include Dallas-based Willow Bridge Property Co., Greystar, Blackstone’s LivCor, Camden Property Trust, Cushman & Wakefield Inc. & Pinnacle Property Management Services LLC, and Cortland Management LLC.
The Justice Department filed its original complaint against RealPage in August, alleging it violated antitrust laws through its algorithm that landlords use to get recommended rental prices for millions of apartments across the nation.
“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,” said acting Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division said in a press release. “Today’s action against RealPage and six major landlords seeks to end their practice of putting profits over people and make housing more affordable for millions of people across the country.”
RealPage has denied the allegations and in December said the Justice Department had closed a criminal investigation against into company.
The six landlords operate more than 1.3 million units in 43 states and the District of Columbia, according to Justice Department officials. Willow Bridge alone manages more than 180,000 units across the country.
While RealPage is not the only company offering an algorithmic tool to help property managers set prices, the suit said the company controls 80% of the market and uses “competitors’ sensitive data.”
A White House report in December found Dallas-Fort Worth is the second largest market for use of RealPage’s rent recommendation software, increasing the price of an apartment about $132 a month.
Lawsuits in the past also allege RealPage uses confidential data the company’s clients have agreed to privately share to help RealPage’s software determine the highest price.
KERA reached out to Willow Bridge Property and RealPage for comment Wednesday and will update this story with any response.
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