By CATIE CHESHIRE | Westword
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser has joined attorneys general from seven other states in suing software company RealPafe for an alleged illegal price-fixing scheme that has pushed rent prices up across the country.
RealPage sells software to landlords, who in turn share sensitive data such as rent invoices, lease terms and vacancies. Then RealPage puts the data into an algorithm that delivers price recommendations to those same landlords. But instead of competing against each other to provide the best services or best price, landlords work together through RealPage to set rents as high as they can, according to the lawsuit.
“A significant number of landlords then effectively agree to outsource their pricing function to RealPage with auto acceptance or other settings such that RealPage as a middleman, and not the free market, determines the price that a renter will pay,” the lawsuit contends.