RealPage's Local Regulatory Battles Heat Up With New Lawsuits
Lawsuits volleyed between RealPage and state and local governments last week.
The Washington attorney general on Thursday sued RealPage, along with landlords like Greystar and Cushman & Wakefield, just one day after RealPage filed suit against Berkeley, California, over a local law banning software that uses algorithms to help landlords set rents.
The actions are the latest in a string of legal and regulatory wrangling involving RealPage since a 2022 ProPublica investigation into the company’s rent-setting software, formerly called YieldStar, accused the proptech firm of inflating housing costs.
The software has increasingly been targeted by governments, with cities including San Francisco, Philadelphia and Minneapolis enacting rules against using algorithms to set apartment rents.
The Colorado Legislature is considering a ban, which could be the first statewide prohibition, although a similar bill died in the state’s senate last year. A similar measure is up for consideration in California. Colorado, Arizona and Washington, D.C., have also sued RealPage, alleging anticompetitive behavior amid a historic housing crisis.
The Department of Justice filed its own suit against RealPage in August, and earlier this year it added six major landlords to its complaint. In a January update to the case that Washington’s suit now mirrors, the DOJ alleged that the defendants, which included Greystar, Blackstone’s LivCor and Cushman & Wakefield’s Pinnacle Property Management, colluded on rents using RealPage’s platform.
“RealPage’s unfair practices are cheating renters and pricing families out of stable housing,” Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown said in a release announcing the suit. “Washington is facing a housing crisis and we must respond with every available tool.”
RealPage has consistently said its software doesn't amount to price-fixing but has said it would work with the DOJ on “solutions.”
“Washington State AG Nick Brown decided to recycle misleading and inaccurate allegations from predecessor cases, despite our efforts to constructively engage with his Office to help resolve their misunderstandings,” RealPage Senior Vice President of Communications and Creative Jennifer Bowcock told Bisnow in an email.
RealPage published a paper last summer purporting to offer “the real story” in an apparent effort to push back against the yearslong narrative.
But the suit against Berkeley is its first legal effort against an ordinance banning its product.
RealPage targeted Berkeley’s ordinance first in an effort to stave off its planned implementation later this month, but others could be up next, according to the East Bay Times.
“Everything is on the table,” RealPage outside counsel Stephen Weissman said during a press conference last week, the Times reported.
Berkeley’s ordinance is in violation of the First Amendment because it prohibits the company’s right to lawful speech, specifically offering advice to customers, the suit says. RealPage also alleges municipalities have contributed to their own housing unaffordability by impeding new development, thereby driving up costs, and are looking for a scapegoat.
Berkeley has historically been a difficult city in which to build housing, with a record of denying applications for dense housing projects. The city is trying to reverse that trend by ending single-family zoning.
Berkeley didn't respond to requests for comment.
A study published in late 2024 by the White House Council of Economic Advisers estimated that rents set with the help of algorithms cost renters an extra $3.8B in 2023. RealPage disputed this report, saying it was compiled with erroneous information.
