DOJ joins Tennessee, seven states in lawsuit against software company accused of driving up rents

The U.S. Department of Justice has joined a bipartisan antitrust suit against RealPage brought by the state of Tennessee and seven other states. 

The company sells software to landlords that collects nonpublic information from competing landlords and uses that combined information to make pricing recommendations. The suit alleges that the software uses non-public, sensitive information and allows landlords to “to manipulate, distort, and subvert market forces,” driving up rental prices unfairly. 

Particularly, use of RealPage has been seen to violate antitrust rules in housing in cities including Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Memphis, and Nashville. 

“My office has been looking at RealPage since 2023 following concerns about the company’s efforts to keep rents artificially high in cities across Tennessee,” said Tennessee Attorney General Skrmetti. “We’re glad to be part of this bipartisan effort to protect consumers and hold RealPage accountable.”

The Department of Justice said this is the major civil antitrust lawsuit where use of an algorithm was central to pricing manipulation. RealPage has been used to manage some 16 million rental properties across the U.S., particularly in the South and the Sun Belt.

It has also been alleged that the company holds a monopoly on "revenue management software" for landlords as it controls 80% of the market. 

“Americans should not have to pay more in rent because a company has found a new way to scheme with landlords to break the law,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement about the DOJ joining the suit.

The other states joining Tennessee and the DOJ in the suit include North Carolina, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington. Read the full suit from Tennessee here.