What Is RealPage? DOJ Sues Software Firm Using Algorithm Enabling Landlords to Fix High Rents

As sky-high rents and a housing shortage become major issues in the 2024 presidential election, the U.S. Justice Department has sued software company RealPage, alleging its algorithm enabled landlords nationwide to collude in raising rents on tenants. The DOJ says the price-fixing scheme has impacted millions of renters across the United States. ProPublica reporter Heather Vogell, whose investigation first exposed RealPage, says as much as 70% of big apartment buildings in some neighborhoods are owned by property managers using RealPage, with landlords seeing the software “as a way to have a rising tide that lifts all boats.” We also speak with tenant rights organizer Tara Raghuveer, who says RealPage is guilty of “some of the grossest, most extractive business practices” documented in recent years, but the firm is hardly alone. “For so much of the market which is a catastrophic failure, landlords’ business model is predicated on tenants’ instability,” says Raghuveer.