Why U.S. renters are taking corporate landlords to court
Why U.S. renters are taking corporate landlords to court
U.S. landlords who use RealPage products to set prices on rental apartments are facing accusations of collusion.
- A group of lawsuits accuse large landlords of price-fixing the market rate of rent in the United States
- A complaint filed by Washington D.C.’s Attorney General alleges 14 landlords in the district are sharing competitively sensitive data through RealPage, a real estate software provider
- RealPage recommends prices for roughly 4.5 million housing units in the United States
- RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions
A group of renters in the U.S. say their landlords are using software to deliver inflated rent hikes.
“We’ve been told as tenants by employees of Equity that the software takes empathy out of the equation. So they can charge whatever the software tells them to charge,” said Kevin Weller, a tenant at Portside Towers since 2021.
Tenants say the management started to increase prices substantially after giving renters concessions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
RealPage is one of the great unrecognized villains of the modern age.
Fun story, a few years back I caught my landlord overbilling me on utilities. I said hey I did the math and you owe me back $X and I'm not paying any more utilities until that amount I'd been overpaying has been used up. My landlord used Realpage for billing, and Realpage said no that's not how it works, we'll get it corrected but you need to keep paying what's in the system or you'll be delinquent. I said go fuck yourself, I have no reason to trust that you and the landlord will adjust it accurately if I give you more money, I'm not obligated to wait until your system figures it out, your system is your problem, not mine. I plan to pay amounts I actually owe and not amounts I don't. They said you really have to. I said hey check it out I think I don't, let's see which one of us is right.
We went back and forth about it for quite some time, including me telling my bank not to accept withdrawals from RealPage (since they started charging me even with emails expressly explaining that they were not authorized to), which made them even more irritated at me and charging me extra fees. I said dude I am more than happy to explain this all to a judge if you want to go that route. They said you really have to pay though, we've worked out the overbill and corrected it but you still have late and returned-payment fees. I said we went over this, go fuck yourself, did I stutter.
When I moved out my landlord tried to not give me back my security deposit until RealPage was happy with my utilities balance. I waited 31 days and then sent them a formal notice that if they didn't return my security deposit I was within my rights to take them to court and get paid triple and planned to do so in 7 days. They said it had all been a big misunderstanding and was there really a need for all this and gave me back my security deposit.
Just talking about it now again makes me amped-up and irritated.
Good for you though, that was a satisfying read.
I mean I'm glad it worked out right in the end. At the time I was just pissed, though.
Also, holy shit, I went back to look up some of the saga in my old emails, and there were definitely parts that were entertaining that I'd totally forgotten about. If you liked reading the summary check this out -- this is a short excerpt from one of some very long email exchanges I had about the whole thing:
Hey, I just logged in to look at sending a check for this month and I still see a balance for last month. Did you decide not to cash my check? I'm not paying additional fees. I'm fine paying for my utilities. Charging me a late fee when I had a credit, that you didn't decide to apply until after the bill was due, is ridiculous. Charging me a fee to store my credit card, when you're refusing to un-store my credit card when I ask you to, is ridiculous. Again my bank's take on it when I talked to them about it was that it "sounds illegal." I'm sorta shocked that people put up with this + do business with you. Anyway let me know - just like last month, I'm fine sending you a check for what I actually owe you.
We have not received a check for your previous balance at this time. Once your check has been applied to the previous balance, you will receive an email notification. Until then, the full balance is still due on your account.
Okay, sure. I just sent via certified mail a check for $248.93. That represents:
- $299.96, the amount currently on my account according to you for the past 2 months.
- -$4 for the card storage fee from this bill (again, please stop storing my card; your system will not allow me to remove it)
- -$4 for the card storage fee from March's invoice
- -$8.11 for late fee from March's invoice
- -$5.08 for late fee from February's invoice
- -$4.84 for late fee from January's invoice
- -$25 for returned item fee from January's invoice (I told you not to bill me, because I didn't owe you money - I'm happy that you eventually applied my credit to this balance instead of trying to collect more without authorization, but me putting a stop on you trying to bill me without authorization for money I don't owe you is 100% legitimate)
So in total $248.93. If there's anything above you feel like is justified let me know ... if (management agency) tries to take collection action against me for any of the nonsense above I plan to defend myself. I'm happy paying utilities and will not be paying random additional amounts of money. Hopefully that seems reasonable but whether or not it's acceptable to you, it's what I'll be doing. IDK why you guys do business this way, but best of luck with it I guess. So the check, I sent to this address:
(photo)
Like this:
(photo)
The post office said they couldn't find your address. The best they could find was this (and I swear this is what they showed me, I'm not being funny):
(photo - their address is on Ritchie Road, but the post office I swear to God corrected it to "Bitchie Road")
So, that's where I sent it, certified mail. They said expected delivery is May 25th. Again, best of luck.
There's more, including me threatening to charge them a late fee for the time when they owed me money and weren't willing to credit it back to me, but that's as much as I had time to dig back up right now.
No it wasn’t. He shoulda taken them to court sued and gotten on record this company acts this way so we hav precedent for this situation. In this story. No one wins. Company didn’t keep their security deposit and the renters time was wasted completely. No one won lol
They said it had all been a big misunderstanding
They always say this after they try to get away with bullshit.
"We misunderstood that you would actually lawyer up. Our bad."
Not a landlord, but I had a similar excuse thrown at me by a dealership. Towed my car an hour for a recall to a college town because everywhere else was booked for a while. They did close to $1000 of unauthorized work and then threw a fit when I told them I would not be paying for it unless they could show me a signed document where I agreed. When they realized I wasn't a broke college kid after I threatened legal action and to report my car stolen if they were not willing to give it back, I got the "this was a misunderstanding, it never should have went this far" from the owner who had just called me a liar 10minutes prior. Such obvious BS
They always say this after they try to get away with bullshit.
They, in this case, could refer to banks, other corporations, your boss, politicians, police officers, etc. Anyone in a position of authority will inevitably be tempted to abuse that authority, or at the very least assume that their understanding of the situation is superior to the understanding of those over whom They wield that power. When conflict arises, if you're correct regarding your rights, finances, etc., it's "just a big misunderstanding, and can't we all just get along?" But when They have the legal upper hand in a disagreement, They will fuck you with an iron bar and convince anyone watching that you are a deadbeat trying to pull one over on the rest of your fellow proletariats.
And meanwhile, guess who is constantly buying political influence to ensure they never lose the legal upper hand again?
Here in Brazil it’s much simpler because when you rent a place, basic services like electricity and water are transferred to you. So you get the bills, not your landlord.
And services like internet, you hire your own instead of using the ISP hired by your landlord.
It isn't consistent in the US. Some landlords or properties include utilities in the price of rent, some don't. Some only include things like trash/water/sewer and it's up to you to source an electric/gas/internet provider.
That's usually the US system, but occasionally not. Like a lot of things, there's no consistency; it's just kind of a big freedom free-for-all for better or for worse.
Yea it varies. I pay the electric and internet bills, the landlord pays the water/sewer/trash/tax bills. FL USA.
This is pretty similar to how it is in the US at over 90% of the places I've ever rented. But since we're the world leader in enshittification, this kind of scumbag bullshit has been on the rise over the last few years.
I am glad you got some justice in the situation. Fuck them for making it difficult
I just went through a very long story with a building that uses realpage and they're absolutely scumbags. Fuck Bozzuto is the only way I can sum it up
Dude, good job fighting the system on this! I wish more people were like you!
That is incredible you were able to advocate for yourself that way.
It’s exhausting to have to fight like that for a fair shake. It makes me sad because I know how much energy and focus that takes.
Even if the victims can recoup some money, settlements almost never pay out commensurate with what was financially lost. What’s more is that company and the landlords who utilize it will never be able to repay the people whose effort, happiness, and opportunity they stole.Yeah it was like my own little holy war. It went on for quite a while. Honestly it's partly that I just like being a pain in the ass and being hostile to people, and this was a golden opportunity where it was warranted.
Think about if all the vitriol that goes into internet political arguments could instead be turned outwards at the people who run the fucked up system. It was a brief moment where that energy was channeled in a productive direction and towards the source of the problem.
Fuck yea man. I don't understand how people can work for sleezebag companies. I know a lot of us have to work, I get it, but I worked phones (retention, the worst) for a credit card company for a bit and I was able to do it on the up, and be legitimately helpful for customers, all while I refused to upsell anything that they didn't want.
I'd get "talked to" about it but I never cared. What's a better experience for the customer? fuck your monthly metrics, the idea is to RETAIN customers, right? Well that starts by not fucking them off so you can make a bonus.
I never got a bonus, and I never cared. I'm of the mind that the product should sell itself, otherwise it's not ready for market. If it's not filling a need then it's a waste of time and frankly, a companies resources. People generally don't forgive corporations, nor should they. It still offends me that if sales weren't what they were expecting it's somehow the people at the bottoms fault, especially when the people writing the shit don't have any need for the product. I won't be moved from this rock. If my sales aren't to your specs, take that back to legal and your ideas guys and tell them to try harder. Weak links can be found in more than one place.
Fwiw, I left the company, they didn't let me go. To this day I refuse to carry debt or even own credit cards tho. Nope, doesn't sit well with me. On the same vein tho, I measure how successful I am by how little I need and how little I spend, not how much I earn. This monopolization of everything has turned me staunchly anti-consumer (in the sense of consumption in general, not heil corporate/anti-customer. Right to repair 100%, revoke charters of those that bad faith skirt the intention). I both rue the reactionary in me, even if came from biological imperative, and fucking LOVE where Ive landed at the same time.
All you need to do in this world to win is kill your internal sense of justice but that's a price too high. Team Rawls for life.
I don’t understand how people can work for sleezebag companies.
This is part one.
To this day I refuse to carry debt or even own credit cards tho.
I think this is part two.
It's awesome that you do this, but if you can afford to avoid debt entirely you are probably somewhat priviledged compared to some. A lot of people in the US are working off student debts for degrees that didn't quite deliver the jobs they were expecting. Or just were dealt a bad hand to begin with.
All corporate landlords need to be dissolved. It shouldn't exist. People should not be able to make profit off of housing ever.
Cannot say I agree with that last sentence but unlimited profits from housing should absolutely be illegal. I've been dealing with an absolute shit show of a corporate landlord, one that uses realpage, and it's really been eye opening how fucked these companies are. I 100% knew they were scumbag pieces of shit but I got a full dose of the lengths they'll go to in order to make a buck. Just two of the many cost saving measures: letting me go without heat for 3 weeks and letting our elevators stay broken for 6 weeks. I'm convinced the only reason they fixed our elevators is someone must have finally gotten their lawyer on the phone to them.
Absolutely souless garbage humans work for these companies. They sleep fine at night knowing you're paying a lot of money for an apartment you're freezing your ass off in, have to struggle to get in and out of, whatever. They absolutely give zero fucks about the lives they're fucking with.
having to be responsible for the actual property seems to be a good idea.
idk how it's handled in germany, but i'm not aware of stuff this bad. i have someone in my family who has renters, and they either go fix stuff themselves or pay a professional if the heating's acting up again.
and being a renter of someonecs privately owned apartment in a corporate owned house, i feel like being taken care of adequately.
i hope it gets better for you guys.
There are times that a corporate entity of some description is extremely useful. The issue is for-profit companies.
A simpler solution is to add a tax, based on the property value for for-profit companies. For niche situations, the effect of this will be annoying but not devastating. For companies dedicated to sucking money out of housing, it will hurt them badly. Maybe have it tick up 0.5% of the property a year till it's 5%. Slow enough not to cause a massive shock to the market, but large enough to force a change.
An obvious example of a useful company owned housing situation is a set of apartments. However, here a non profit would work even better.
As for valid for-profit ownership, it does happen. E.g. I know of a veterinary practice that owns several houses. They used them to provide subsided housing to staff, close at hand. They also allow them to house mid to long term locum staff close to the practice. Everyone wins from this arrangement.
Then where does the money go?
If someone rents you a house do they get to charge only the mortgage? What about repairs and other unforeseen expenses to keep it up? And if you pay for repairs that never happen, what then?
If people can only break even on renting, many just. They'll sit in empty houses until market prices increases, exacerbating all of this.
Haha I'm in this picture!
One was small claims court. They kept my security, tried to charge me a exit fee and demanded I pay more for cleanup. Then a late fee for refusing to pay! The idiots sent a manager over to small claims to defend it, who was literally out of her element. The judge kept going, "Where in the lease does it say that?" And this dummy manager didn't know anything, forcing the court to give me my security deposit and drop the fees.
The other was threatening small claims court for an $2k because they ignored my email of my exit date, and tried to charge me a extra month. They immediately "found all my paperwork" all of a sudden and dropped it.
These fuckers are absolutely nickeling and diming people. And more people should be ready to flood the courts with their bullshit.
We need a national renters bill of rights! Rent control is badly needed because no one can afford to live anymore. If America becomes a nation of renters our economy will collapse.
Everyone should have ownership of their home. I do not know the mechanism for how to transition from rent to ownership, but its the only ethical, economical way.
The answer is probably a combination of things. We need to be able to build more houses / duplexes / apartment buildings / etc. That's a fact. There could be ways to help people build their own house (up to code) and cut out the middleman.
If people could easily build their own, do you know how fast property values would drop? Homes in the middle of nowhere should cost nothing.
My answer, cap the number of single-family rental homes in a given jurisdiction. Give 5-year chits that authorize a property owner to rent the property, then every 5 years have some sort of event that allows someone else to take the chit. That way you don't have 80% of the single-family homes being bought up for rentals and it doesn't bar the market from having new people enter.
As for the event, my preference is for a landleech Thunderdome. Two blood suckers enter, one leaves, and they are allowed to profit off someone else's hard work. Corporations are allowed to participate by champion proxy, but the champion must be a C-level executive and they must participate in every match for every property they rent.
Apartments and multi-family homes (duplex, triplex, etc.) can be rentals as far as I am concerned because there is room for it in society, but housing needs to be put in the constitution as a right (as does food) and rent has to be more regulated.
If America becomes a nation of renters our economy will collapse.
That seems like a weird assertion.
It is honestly not. Property ownership is currently the primary method for being able to collateralize small business loans. Without the general populace having access to that, that initial step for starting a new business or pursuing a venture before it is viable for investment becomes VERY difficult to achieve. Especially if it is something that requires a lot of involvement or time to get moving. Once you take out the ability to make a startup or small business, you are left with an ever-dwindling pool of options and end up in a persistent state of monopoly it oligopoly for most goods and services, which in turn leads to an utter stagnation of economic conveyance and growth.
Another way it stagnates economic growth is in the increased expense associated with housing. The actual economy, not the BS we are told is the economy, grows when money moves. Individuals and companies buying goods and services from each other. That only happens with disposable income. If everyone is paying 2x what they would in rent that they would in ownership, that comes out of their disposable income. This leads to less luxury (in an economic sense) purchasing and, in many cases, restricted necessity purchasing. So less money is available to move, which causes the economy to shrink.
Just looked at that company's website. Gotta love the frigid mentality that causes them to refer to people's home and shelter as a "business" and talk about "minimizing costs" like it is making fucking dog collars.
If anyone knows how to get in touch with Anonymous, please suggest that they obliterate this dystopian nightmare from the face of the internet.
Well, if this isn’t a classic case of “he said, she said.”
From the article:
“Rather than making independent decisions on what the market here in D.C. calls for in terms of filling vacant units, landlords are compelled, under the terms of their agreement with RealPage, to charge what RealPage tells them,” said [Attorney General of the District of Columbia Brian Schwalb].
Also:
RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions.
So, which one is it?
Regardless, these are some very interesting cases revolving around the Sherman Act as it applies to housing markets.
EDIT: Here’s the video version of the article.
Of course they are free to set their own price, but when the system tells them they should charge a higher price "due to market conditions" of course they take the easy way out instead of actually researching the market. So it's both, but mostly the first because they are lazy.
Why isnt ratethelandlord.org more popular?
Because when the deck is stacked against you with even finding a place to rent - let alone one of decent quality at an affordable price - reviews might not be that helpful?
If you're starving, a stale hunk of bread is better than none.
Can we engage on this? I feel for the people who are truly on the edge. I would also suggest that organizing those who are still housed to share information for mutual advantage is a cool idea.
This is essentially the same way that my employer sets pay ranges.
They send a list of job titles and descriptions to an outside company along with the number of employees and how much each of those employees are paid. Lots of other employers send their info and the outside company tries to match up all the job descriptions and then sends back to all of the employers what the "market range" is for every job.
My employer then decides where in that range they think is "competitive" (hint: its near the bottom). That's the amount HR and Finance are willing to approve when hiring someone into a role, regardless of experience. The wages are only "competitive" if every other employer goes along with the scheme and offers the same amount.
My (former) job did that. The firm they hired just flst out omitted every regional job equivalent that paid higher, and kept their scope narrowed to places that paid at least $10k less a year. They then recommended pay cuts everywhere, which mostly amounted to cutting enough labor costs just enough to pay for the contract that did the research.
I took it as a sign to start applying elsewhere: glad I did.
Competitive wages is jargon for "We'll pay you you the least possible amount of money. It's competitive for us."
Edit: Spelling is important.
In the U.S. (not sure if this is elsewhere) you have the work number too. Employers that participate share every pay period and bonis to your record. Then future employers can look up and see exactly how much you were making when they run the background check.
This is heartening in some ways, at least it's good news for certain people in that area of the U.S. Here in Utah, tenants have NO rights, and they are told that whenever they sign a lease. There are no options for tenants to retalitate against anything a landlord decides to do.
Of course, almost 100% of our "esteemed" legislatures here are landlords, so they are the one who pass the laws. And in Utah, a landlord is allowed to enter your premises and abscond with any item of furniture or equipment they so desire (if they want your stereo, it's theirs) and there is nothing a tenant can do. Tenants aren't even allowed by law to contact a landlord's place of business, under penalty of fines and jail sentences.
Our legislatures are strengthening landlord laws this session, so things will only get worse and worse for renters here.
Good for the renters. Hopefully they can win.
Man this seems like a great target for Anonymous to permanently cripple... 🙏🏼
I work in this industry at a decent level with these companies. They regularly try to worm out of contracts, get mixed up in unethical shit, and do things like this. We are literally one step removed from organized crime a lot of the time.
I'm not convinced state housing is the solution, but extensive regulatory oversight is badly needed.
Get Yardi too. Same crap wrapped up in a more terrible software package.
“the software takes empathy out of the equation”
I can’t wait to see how even more callous the software can get when they add “A.I.” to it. Maybe they’ll just cut out the rental office people altogether and all customer service will be with a glorified chat bot.
lol they think empathy was ever in the equation
I have no idea how people can afford to rent. In my general 5 square mile area, there are literally dozens of new apartment complexes, townhomes, and housing developments that are built strictly to rent, and the rent for all of these places range from $1500 for a 2 bedroom apartment to $3000 per month for the townhomes and rental houses. I just don't understand the system where these people somehow cannot afford to buy a home but are expected to pay more than a mortgage in rent.
Who is living in them? That’s what I am so confused about. Like who can afford it ? Is it people from neighboring towns that are rich enough to get an apartment in town for work like. I just don’t get who is filling all these new places.
Multiple people living together. I recently went to Washington about an hour north of Seattle at a place I lived at a long time ago. Place was a shithole with plazas boarded up. This was like a decade ago. Went back there this last fall and shitty homes there are like half a million dollars. It took a few days before it clicked at how many fucking cars there were lining up and down all the streets. Even where I visited had like 4 adults; there's just so many damn people bunking together now even with full time jobs.
Probably not many people long term. When you buy a place to rent it out you need a steady stream of people who want it over the years. Single family homes with 3-4 bedrooms are good for young families.
The problem with lots of these expensive apartment complexes in small towns that can't support them is: people are not going to be perpetually locked out of houses. Either we will build more houses, build more apartments in better cities, or kids will live with their parents longer.
One of my top priorities for kids I have is housing. College degree? Maybe a state school. But they will definitely need a place to live.
Houses and mortgages in my neighborhood aren't much cheaper for an older house with 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. I know owning and a 300/month savings off that higher rent price is not nothing but it's not the huge savings it was several years ago to instead have a mortgage. That said I'm not sure how anybody is affording anything.
Price fixing is normal and doesn't require explicit collusion.
Have you ever seen gas stations on 2 sides of the road with the exact same prices? It's a genlemen's agreement.
This lawsuit will go nowhere.
I think one could make the argument that the shared software creates a situation of collusion. Gas stations can see what their neighboring gas stations are charging via the giant sign with the price per gallon listed but there's nothing uniting them with every other gas station in the city to ensure nobody charges less than anyone else.
It's nothing like that. Read the article.
Big landlords use software to scrape rents from all sorts of websites. One site can not be solely blamed. With the data available out there it's no wonder they're all aligned
This isn't a data scraping site. Clients uploaded their rental data to the site directly, and then the site "compares them" and tells the clients what to charge. It also explicitly requires all clients to follow its pricing "recommendations" to maintain those prices.
These landlords outsourced pricing collision to a 3rd party. They formed a monopoly with software and cost their tenats 100s of millions extra in doing so.
I've worked within multiple sfr companies over the past 8 years. Including with their product teams building out in house acquisitions and asset management platforms to quickly aggregate comps for rental and sale values. While what you're saying may be true, there is a lot more beneath the surface. To be clear, institutional single family landlords should be legislated out of existence, but to you and everyone downvoting, you don't get the big picture here.
Most apartments I've rented haven't had their rent amounts available online.