New Jersey AG touches Realpage and 10 landlords with antitrust suit
“In this case, the defendants were unlawfully on the race at the expense of the tenants of New Jersey who had difficulty paying the more and more frightening price levels imposed by this cartel,” Platkin said in a statement. “Today we hold them responsible for illegal behavior that has fueled the affordable housing crisis of the State and has robbed New Jerseyans of their fundamental right to shelter.”
A Realpage spokesperson told Housing In an e -mail statement that the company is “disappointed” in the AG’s actions that “blame Realpage for the challenges of the affordability of New Jersey.” The lawsuit came without earlier involvement between the parties, Realpage claims.
“Realpage’s income management software has been deliberately designed and built to be legal and has always used legal and responsible data, and we have a long history of structural work to prove that,” said the statement. “Realpage’s income management software helps the home providers to meet fair homes, rental controls and emergency price gut laws, and does not use personal or demographic data to generate recommendations for rent.
“Realpage is proud of the solutions that we offer in New Jersey and nationwide. We believe that the claims of the New Jersey Attorney General are deprived of merit and do nothing to make homes more affordable. New Jersey should stop pro-competitive technology of traffic and we encourage the public leaders of the state to meet the state to meet the state to meet the state to meet the state to meet the state to meet the state to meet the state to meet the state to meet the state to meet the state to meet the state to meet the state” “” “” “
Platkin claims that the Realpage Mechanisms software contains that “strict compliance with the prices it generates” and has aids to ensure that landlords accept that price.
The software in the center of the allegations is Yieldstar, who uses data from the first and third parties to help landlords set the rental prices for multifamilie units. Yieldstar helps landlords to maximize the return on their units.
The complaint does not make words when it comes to the landlords, who goes so far to call them a cartel that other landlords actively recruit to participate in the ‘schedule’. They have reportedly used realpage software to communicate with each other on rental prices with multiple families.
The landlords mentioned in the suit are Morgan Properties, Avalonbay, Kamson, Realty Operations Group, Lefrak Estates, Greystar Management, Aion Management, Cammeby’s Management, Veris Residential, Russo Property Management, Russo Development And Bozzuto Management Company.
It is not the first antitrust submitted by the government against Realpage. In August, the Ministry of Justice (DOJ) has submitted a similar complaint, claiming that the returnsar enables landlords to generate price floors on the basis of data that are not available to the public. The lawsuit in that suit is underway.
Legal problems began to assemble for Realpage then Propublica published An exposure in October 2022 that revealed, among other things, that landlords were able to see anonymously to see which other landlords charged for similar units and avoid prices under those figures.
Since then, a series of Class-Action rights cases have been submitted against Realpage, also in 2023 by a group of tenants in Tennessee.
Since October, various lawsuits have been established against Realpage’s Leasing Office, claiming that the credit reports published that falsely claimed that lease applicants had crime judgments, earlier expansions and other credit violations.
Note of the editors: This story has been updated with comments from Realpage.
