NC accuses 6 landlords of ‘illegally working together’ to raise rents in RealPage lawsuit
North Carolina is joining a bipartisan group of states and the federal government in building on its ongoing litigation against RealPage, accusing the real estate software company of “illegally working together” with six large landlords to raise rents.
In a 161-page federal complaint filed Tuesday in the Middle District of North Carolina, Attorney General Jeff Jackson and a bipartisan group of other attorneys general accused Texas-based RealPage of illegally working with some of the country’s largest landlords to “manipulate, distort, and subvert market forces” and set higher rents than what a competitive market would allow.
North Carolina previously joined the federal government and seven other states in suing RealPage for allegedly helping landlords across the country “sidestep” market competition in August. That lawsuit came after more than a yearlong investigation by then-Attorney General Josh Stein’s office, which was publicly announced in March.
Tuesday’s complaint, an amended version of the lawsuit filed last year, names RealPage as a defendant, along with six landlords: Greystar Real Estate Partners, LivCor, Camden Property Trust, Cushman & Wakefield, Pinnacle Property Management Services, Willow Bridge Property Company, and Cortland Management.
“North Carolinians are struggling to afford their rent as it is — we won’t stand for landlords and real estate companies making the problem worse to line their own pockets,” Jackson said in a statement. “I’m suing these landlords to make sure they play by the rules so North Carolinians can get fair prices for rent.”
Jackson, who was sworn into office last week, said the landlords were “illegally working together” and with RealPage “to raise North Carolinians’ rents.”
The amended lawsuit against RealPage accuses the company of using its revenue management software to compile “competitively sensitive information” from landlords, including rental prices from executed leases, lease terms, and future occupancy, and then inputting that “broad swath” of nonpublic and granular rental data into an algorithm, to provide landlords with “daily, near real-time” pricing recommendations, and monitor their compliance.
The lawsuit states that many landlords “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.”
Landlords do this to “’eliminate the guessing game’ about what their competitors are doing, and ultimately take instructions from RealPage on how to make business decisions to ‘optimize’ — or in reality, maximize — rents,” the complaint states.
During a news conference in August, Stein, who was sworn in last week as governor, said three of the top 10 markets the company operates in are Charlotte, Raleigh, and Durham and Chapel Hill.
In a news release Tuesday, Jackson’s office said landlords have allegedly used RealPage’s algorithm to set rents for almost one-third of one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments in each of the three metro areas.
RealPage has faced other lawsuits across the country as well. Arizona sued the company and nine landlords in February 2024, and the District of Columbia filed its own lawsuit against RealPage and 13 landlords in November.
Responding to the first lawsuit filed by North Carolina, the federal government, and other states in August, RealPage spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock said the company was “disappointed that, after multiple years of education and cooperation on the antitrust matters concerning RealPage, the DOJ has chosen this moment to pursue a lawsuit that seeks to scapegoat pro-competitive technology that has been used responsibly for years.”
Bowcock also said that RealPage’s software “is purposely built to be legally compliant, and we have a long history of working constructively with the DOJ to show that.”
Greystar, one of the companies added to the lawsuit, said in a statement Tuesday that it was “disappointed” state and federal officials bringing the suit against RealPage decided to add it and other landlords to the action.
“Greystar has and will conduct its business with the utmost integrity. At no time did Greystar engage in any anti-competitive practices,” the company said. “We will vigorously defend ourselves in this lawsuit.”
The other states joining North Carolina and the U.S. Department of Justice in Tuesday’s lawsuit are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington.
This story was originally published January 7, 2025 at 7:40 PM.
