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The Apartment Rental Market Is Rigged by Algorithms, a DOJ Lawsuit Alleges
The US Department of Justice claims that a company called RealPage is responsible for price-fixing across millions of apartment rental units nationwide.
But it does so, the DOJ alleges in its lawsuit, by effectively helping its clients cheat; landlords feed rental rate and lease terms into the system, and the RealPage algorithm in turn spits out a suggested price that enables coordination and hinders competition. “By feeding sensitive data into a sophisticated algorithm powered by artificial intelligence, RealPage has found a modern way to violate a century-old law through systematic coordination of rental housing prices,” deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco said in a statement. RealPage has repeatedly denied any allegations of antitrust violations, going so far as to publish a six-page digital pamphlet that claims to tell “The Real Story” about its products, along with an extensive FAQ page on a dedicated public policy website.
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