January 8, 2025 – Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell has joined with colleagues in nine other states in a federal lawsuit against the nation’s biggest landlords over what they say are anticompetitive practices that make it harder to rent an apartment.
The August 2024 lawsuit against RealPage and five other companies claims the companies take advantage of “algorithmic pricing,” and other practices that tilt the scales against renters.
“As residents continue to grapple with rising costs including high rents, our office will seek to hold accountable those who betray renters’ trust and undermine a fair and competitive housing market,” Campbell said in a statement. “This lawsuit against RealPage and the named landlords is one step towards that accountability.”
Rents in the Greater Boston area already are among the most expensive in the nation, with the median rent price for a two-bedroom apartment tipping out at $2,850, according to a November report by Rent.com.
That’s a year-over-year increase of 3.5%, the report showed.
An amended complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for North Carolina’s Middle District names Greystar Real Estate Partners LLC, Blackstone’s LivCor LLC; Camden Property Trust; Cushman & Wakefield Inc. and Pinnacle Property Management Services LLC; Willow Bridge Property Company LLC, and Cortland Management LLC as defendants.
All told, the companies oversee more than 1.3 million rental units in 43 states and the District of Columbia, Campbell’s office said. The suit argues that they “participated in an unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing, harming millions of renters across the country.”
The Justice Department already has announced a consent decree resolving the claims against Cortland. So Campbell’s office said it did not take legal action against the company.
“While Americans across the country struggled to afford housing, the landlords named in today’s lawsuit shared sensitive information about rental prices and used algorithms to coordinate to keep the price of rent high,” acting Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki, of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said.
The legal action “against RealPage and six major landlords seeks to end their practice of putting profits over people and make housing more affordable for millions of people across the country,” Mekki said.
Other states participating in the legal action are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington.
The Bay State’s legal action seeks to “end the illegal conduct, restore competition in the rental market, and recover civil penalties of up to $5,000 per each violation committed by the defendants,” Campbell’s office said.
By John L. Micek, MassLive
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