Attorney General Josh Stein Sues RealPage for Illegally Raising Rents

For Immediate Release:
Friday, August 23, 2024

Contact:
Nazneen Ahmed (919) 716-0060

(RALEIGH) Attorney General Josh Stein today filed a bipartisan lawsuit against software company RealPage, alleging that it violated antitrust law and pushed apartment prices artificially high for renters in North Carolina and across the country. Attorney General Stein is joined in filing the lawsuit in the Middle District of North Carolina by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Attorneys General of California, Connecticut, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.

"Few things are as important as our homes - but too many North Carolinians struggle to afford their apartment," said Attorney General Josh Stein. "Rents are already too high. I will not tolerate any company scheming to block healthy competition among landlords. It raises rent, and it's illegal."

RealPage sells "revenue management software" to property managers across the country, with a heavy footprint in the Triangle and Charlotte-Mecklenburg areas. In exchange for buying and using that software, property managers share detailed, nonpublic, competitively sensitive data with RealPage that includes information about units coming on the market, the rent they are charging, and discounts.

RealPage uses this nonpublic information to suggest a price that property managers should charge for their apartments to make more money. Then, RealPage uses a range of strategies to induce its clients to automatically accept those recommendations. When they do, prices for comparable apartments become artificially inflated, and renters aren't able to find a better deal by shopping around.

"Between 2010 and 2020 the median rent in Wake County jumped up 40 percent," said Shinica Thomas, Wake County Board of Commissioners Chair. "That costs families an extra $4,200 a year. For a household that's struggling to make ends meet, that can be the difference between stability and eviction."

"Access to affordable housing options is becoming increasingly difficult," said Monica Burks, Policy Counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending. "Anti-competitive practices that inflate already high housing costs disadvantage individuals and families working hard to secure this basic need."

Today's lawsuit is the result of a year-long investigation into RealPage that Attorney General Stein publicly announced in March 2024. Attorney General Stein is asking the court to stop RealPage and the property managers it works with from sharing this non-public information and scheming to inflate rent prices.

A copy of the complaint is available here.

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