> [E]very morning, RealPage provides participating Lessors with recommended price levels. Lessors typically must communicate to a RealPage “Pricing Advisor” that they have “accept[ed]” or “confirm[ed] the “approved pricing” within a specified time frame. If Lessors wish to diverge from the “approved pricing” they must submit reasoning for doing so and await approval.
[...]
> But RealPage emphasizes the need for discipline among participating Lessors and urges them that for its coordinated algorithmic pricing to be the most successful in increasing rents, participating Lessors must adopt RealPage’s pricing at least 80% of the time.
This organization was enforcing 'discipline' among the participants to make sure that they didn't undercut each other too often. That's a cartel.
This sounds like a very weasely framing. Is RealPage putting a gun to landlord's heads? I find it much more likely that they're saying if you aren't listening to our recommendations, we can't guarantee that you'll benefit from them. If you're disagreeing with their algorithm more than 20% of the time, that means you're basically just using your own pricing method which happens to match with RealPage's sometimes.
Keep in mind you are reading a complaint, and not a decision, so it is obviously biased.
Also, I think there is a pretty big difference between enforcing compliance and saying "we think you will make the most if you list at the recommended price".
Where would you draw the line for collusion? Simple information sharing? Recommending listing within 10% of the mean? Punishments for deviating from the mean? Actively setting and listing the price for the landlord.
By my reading, RealPage may be engaging in collusion in the cases where it actively manages and sets prices for landlords (e.g. the AutoPilot service), but not in the cases where it simply reports and recommends a price.
Im guessing they will have to discontinue the service offerings where they take the control and responsibility for setting the price and listing it on behalf of the landlord
You've been downvoted for critical reading. You're right though. Paragraph 57 in the complaint in no way supports the "must" compliance allegations in the cited blog. Ability to perceive that isn't even first-year law school stuff, it's LSAT stuff.
Yes, The closest I could find to a penalty in the complaint is that Landlords are asked to explain why they are pricing outside the range, or may receive a call from Realpage for information
They make a lot of bold claims in paragraph 69 you mean. The only evidence is some employee said "sometimes we were happy to see people go"
Looking past the bluster at the statements of fact, I don't see anything supporting it in the doc. Thats why they have to lean so hard on text questionnaire and phone calls in the he other section as a cartel enforcement method.
I had to read through some of the actual complaint to see what the deal was. The allegation is that RealPage did not just provide pricing data, but went to great lengths, including hiring secret shoppers, to enforce that housing companies not deviate from their price. This would appear, if true, to be a clear violation of antitrust law. This of course comes down to whatever is demonstrated in court to be true.
These companies don't care. A lot of these tenant management companies do legal grey area things and landlords pay for it (even though it's begging to be tackled). A good example is they keep tenant blacklists based on scraped court records [1]. Landlords are not supposed to be using stuff like this. I wouldn't have imagined they are price fixing too.
To remain in compliance with the law, OAG recommends landlords and property owners refrain from requesting a potential tenant’s court records and rental histories altogether and cease relationships with tenant screening bureaus who continue to provide court records. Any New Yorker who believes that they have been denied an apartment because of their rental history should submit a tenant blacklisting complaint online with OAG.
In its investigation of Clipper Equity, OAG determined the company had improperly obtained housing court records for 25 potential tenants and then denied housing to seven of those same applicants. The OAG found that Clipper thus violated the law. Clipper also violated city and state Human Rights laws by requiring potential tenants to disclose their marital status. As part of the agreement, Clipper Equity will take the necessary steps to comply with the laws it broke and has committed to ending its discriminatory screening policies.
> A lot of these tenant management companies do legal grey area things and landlords pay for it (even though it's begging to be tackled).
Back when I was renting (and this I acknowledge isn't even a grey area thing, just shady), I even called out a small local PM company... their "main" website, listing properties was all about their "ethics" and "fairness" and "transparency". But when you went into the "Owners" section you got then told to visit a different site, which talked about how the company would "work with you" to get "the maximum value for your property, strategically adjusting rental pricing upwards" while "shielding the landlord".
What about the time component? Holding a market wide price even for a month can demoralize anyone into accepting the rent if you need to move in a month. Time pressure is the multiplier here. You cannot wait out being homeless by being combative against unreasonable rent.
