RealPage And DOJ Settle Lawsuit Over Rental Pricing

RealPage has reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that resolves the DOJ’s legal action regarding the company’s revenue management software used in the multifamily rental housing sector. The settlement is subject to court approval.

According to DOJ, the proposed consent judgment would require RealPage to:

• Cooperate in the United States’ lawsuit against property management companies that have used its software.

• Cease having its software use competitors’ nonpublic, competitively sensitive information to determine rental prices in runtime operation;

• Cease using active lease data for purposes of training the models underlying the software, limiting model training to historic or backward-looking nonpublic data that has been aged for at least 12 months;

• Not use models that determine geographic effects narrower than at a state level, which is broader than the markets alleged in the complaint;

• Remove or redesign features that limited price decreases or aligned pricing between competing users of the software;

• Cease conducting market surveys to collect competitively sensitive information;

• Refrain from discussing market analyses or trends based on nonpublic data, or pricing strategies, in RealPage meetings relating to revenue management software;

• Accept a court-appointed monitor to ensure compliance with the terms of the consent judgment; and

• Cooperate in the United States’ lawsuit against property management companies that have used its software.

DOJ said the settlement is part of its ongoing enforcement against algorithmic coordination, information sharing and other anticompetitive practices in rental housing markets across the country. “Competing companies must make independent pricing decisions, and with the rise of algorithmic and artificial intelligence tools, we will remain at the forefront of vigorous antitrust enforcement,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of DOJ’s Antitrust Division.

At Richardson, TX-based RealPage, president and CEO Dirk Wakeham said, “This resolution marks an important milestone for RealPage, our customers, and the multifamily industry. Through it all, our teams remained focused on serving customers and advancing the technology the industry relies on every day. We are convinced that RealPage is part of the solution to addressing the cost of housing, helping operators make informed, independent decisions in a complex housing market. We are pleased to have reached this agreement with the DOJ, which brings the clarity and stability we have long sought and allows us to move forward with a continued focus on innovation and the shared goal of better outcomes for both housing providers and renters.”

Source: ConnectCRE

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