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.

  • merc@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    9 months ago

    becomes VERY difficult to achieve

    Unless there’s another way, like they’ve achieved in European countries where renting is the norm. Their economies didn’t collapse.

    • Adalast@lemmy.world
      1·
      9 months ago

      Afaik those countries also have rather extensive tenant rights laws, rent control/caps, and a robust entrepreneur support system, like universal health care and generous PTO laws so people can take time to pursue things while minimizing the risks.

        • Adalast@lemmy.world
          1·
          9 months ago

          Very true, but let’s see that happen in the US, Australia, or New Zealand. Or any of the other dystopian nightmares that capitalists have manipulated into their own private wonderlands.