U.S. landlords who use RealPage products to set prices on rental apartments are facing accusations of collusion.
  • A group of lawsuits accuse large landlords of price-fixing the market rate of rent in the United States
  • A complaint filed by Washington D.C.’s Attorney General alleges 14 landlords in the district are sharing competitively sensitive data through RealPage, a real estate software provider
  • RealPage recommends prices for roughly 4.5 million housing units in the United States
  • RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions

A group of renters in the U.S. say their landlords are using software to deliver inflated rent hikes.

“We’ve been told as tenants by employees of Equity that the software takes empathy out of the equation. So they can charge whatever the software tells them to charge,” said Kevin Weller, a tenant at Portside Towers since 2021.

Tenants say the management started to increase prices substantially after giving renters concessions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

  • frezik
    3·
    10 months ago

    I dunno if I want my employer to also be my landlord. It might have worked well for that specific case, but it’s easy to see how it could fall apart.

    • SheeEttin@programming.devEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      The US has it bad enough with healthcare being tied to employment. I don’t even want to think about also losing my housing if I get laid off. Or even having to also move if I change jobs voluntarily.

      But their description seems more like the company chips in for people who work at a place a couple months at a time.

    • cynar@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      If you’re on a 3 month or so contract, it makes sense. It’s too long to deal with hotels, but too short for proper rentals.

      Basically, there are some legit cases for property ownership. The trick is to kill the leaches, without causing too much damage elsewhere.