RealPage, landlords sued for alleged unlawful hire hikes in DC

Washington, D.C., Legal professional Common Brian Schwalb’s workplace mentioned Tuesday that it is suing RealPage, a property administration software program firm, and 14 of the district’s largest landlords for allegedly colluding to lift rents.

The grievance names a number of publicly traded actual property funding trusts, reminiscent of UDR, AvalonBay Communities and Fairness Residential.

The businesses shared information with RealPage, which then used an algorithm to artificially increase costs for greater than 50,000 residences throughout the town, costing renters tens of millions of {dollars} in unlawful hire hikes, in accordance with a launch from Schwalb’s workplace. The alleged collusion violates the District of Columbia’s Antitrust Act, the workplace mentioned.

In an announcement to CNBC, an organization spokesperson for William C. Smith & Co. mentioned the corporate doesn’t touch upon pending litigation. “On this case to our data we have now not obtained any official courtroom papers and consequently lack any precise details about the specifics of the matter,” the spokesperson mentioned.

A spokesperson for JBG Smith Properties mentioned the corporate doesn’t touch upon ongoing litigation.

Different landlords listed within the lawsuit did not instantly reply to a request for remark.

“Defendants’ coordinated and anticompetitive conduct amounted to a district-wide housing cartel,” Schwalb mentioned in an announcement. “At a time when reasonably priced housing in D.C. is more and more scarce, our workplace will proceed to make use of the regulation to combat for honest market situations and be sure that District residents and law-abiding companies are protected.”

The total grievance might be learn here.

RealPage’s value know-how is utilized by greater than 30% of residences in multifamily buildings and greater than 60% of residences in massive multifamily buildings throughout the district, in accordance with the lawyer normal’s workplace. The software program makes use of proprietary, nonpublic information and statistical fashions to estimate provide and demand and generate a value to maximise the owner’s income.

“In searching for to attract a causal connection between income administration software program like ours and will increase in market-wide rents, this copycat go well with repeats the inaccuracies of predecessor instances,” RealPage spokesperson Jennifer Bowcock mentioned in an announcement to CNBC. “The grievance and others prefer it are mistaken on each the information and the regulation and we are going to vigorously defend towards it.”

RealPage has beforehand been sued by renters within the Southern District of California and Tennessee over the previous 12 months. The latter lawsuit consolidated greater than 20 totally different fits filed in Seattle, Texas, Boston and different courts.

The landlords listed within the Wednesday grievance allegedly colluded to trade aggressive and delicate information and undertake the rents set by RealPage’s “Income Administration” know-how, in accordance with the lawyer normal. The lawsuit alleges the businesses reworked the aggressive actual property market into one the place they labored collectively on the expense of renters.

The lawyer normal’s workplace can be searching for to nominate a company monitor to cease any alleged anti-competitive colluding and is searching for monetary penalties for the district and residents whose rents had been allegedly illegally raised.

The D.C. lawsuit follows a Tuesday decision by a federal jury in Missouri that discovered the Nationwide Affiliation of Realtors and a few brokerages, together with models of Berkshire Hathaway, chargeable for conspiring to artificially inflate dwelling gross sales commissions.

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