RealPage Agrees To Settle Federal Rent-Collusion Case (nytimes.com)
- Reference: 0180208387
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/11/25/1827251/realpage-agrees-to-settle-federal-rent-collusion-case
- Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/technology/realpage-doj-settlement.html
> Using RealPage software, landlords shared information about their rents and occupancy rates with the company, after which an algorithm suggested what to charge renters. The government's suit, which was joined by several state attorneys general, accused RealPage of taking the confidential information and suggesting rents higher than those in a free market.
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> Under the settlement proposal, which requires approval by a federal judge overseeing the case in the Middle District of North Carolina, RealPage's software could no longer use information about current leases to train its algorithm. Nonpublic data from competing landlords would also be excluded when suggesting rents. "Competing companies must make independent pricing decisions, and with the rise of algorithmic and artificial intelligence tools, we will remain at the forefront of vigorous antitrust enforcement," said Gail Slater, who leads the antitrust division at the Department of Justice, in a news release.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-realpage-end-sharing-competitively-sensitive-information-and
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/technology/realpage-doj-settlement.html
As soon as attorney general's started sniffing (Score:3, Informative)
My rent stopped going up. Like full stop.
It's painfully obvious this is cost consumers hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. The frustrating thing is as usual it's a settlement where they don't have to give up any of the ill-gotten gains. All any of these crooks ever have to do is hold out until there is a republican in the White House and then run it up to a federal court. It worked for Microsoft.
Seriously go read up on their antitrust lawsuit. They just dragged it in court until Bush Jr got in charge and he gave them a sweetheart deal that included a significant expansion of their presence in public schools.
Re: (Score:1)
A smart guy like you... still paying rent?
That's odd.
I'm American (Score:3)
I had two family members with major health problems hit right around 2008 one of which survived the other of which died.
I wasn't fully recovered financially until around 2016 which is when my kid hit College and suddenly I had the pay for them to go through college. Not being a psychopath or a piece of shit I stepped up and actually paid for them to get through college. Because if you're going to have a fucking kid you should make damn sure they can actually support themselves in this fucked up world an
Re: (Score:2)
> Trump is likely going to get a third term
It's amazing how many people are stupid enough to actually believe this shit. Again,I am disappointed by the supposedly superior intellect.
weak. (Score:5, Insightful)
So no actual punishment at all, just a promise to stop doing the most obviously illegal part?
The company deserves to be liquidated and the all funds distributed to the renters they ripped off.
Re: (Score:3)
And no repayment to all the renters who have been gouged for years due to this price fixing, either.
Re: weak. (Score:2)
And it's not like those rents are going to go back down
Re:weak. (Score:4, Insightful)
> So no actual punishment at all, just a promise to stop doing the most obviously illegal part?
> The company deserves to be liquidated and the all funds distributed to the renters they ripped off.
It's just a promise that is guaranteed to be violated. Why? Because the only reason for RealPage's existence is to help landlords set rents. If non-public rent info cannot be used to set rents, RealPage has zero value and they would quickly go bankrupt. The mere continuance of their existence strongly suggests that they are violating their promise.
Which DOJ is this? (Score:4, Interesting)
"we will remain at the forefront of vigorous antitrust enforcement," said Gail Slater
I don't recognize this DOJ. Is this from 2023?
Looks to me like RealPage is one of the few grift engines that didn't bribe Trump in time to have the DOJ forget about it.
Did they prevent access to enough information? (Score:2)
I'm reminded of what the Benetton F1 team did when rules specifically prevented teams from using wheel speed and gear information to run traction control systems. Instead they used a combination of incoming air stream pressure (similar to how an aircraft's pitot-static system works) in combination with some preloaded per-event data and track position information to make another traction control system that did the same job.
Information about past leases and public data from competing landlords might still be