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FBI Raids Big Corporate Landlord over Nationwide Rent Hikes
I’ll get to the good and bad news of the week, but first I want to note the big story - Donald Trump’s conviction by a jury in New York - and a little story with big implications - the Federal Bureau of Investigation raiding a corporate landlord in cahoots with a nation-wide rent-fixing cartel that affects up to 16 million apartments.
I don’t have anything to add here that you can’t access in any ordinary political trade magazine or news program, but it’s important to flag it since the election will have significant consequences on market power questions. But Cortland is allegedly part of a much bigger conspiracy orchestrated by a software and consulting firm named RealPage to increase rents nationwide by coordinating landlord pricing decisions and holding apartments off the market. Well, there’s a civil antitrust action in Tennessee that’s been going on since 2023, where the argument is that RealPage has been working with at least 21 large landlords and institutional investors, encompassing 70% of multi-family apartment buildings and 16 million units nationwide, to systematically push up rents.
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