New Jersey RealPage Suit Says Collusion With Landlords Drives up Rents

New Jersey sued the property management software company RealPage on Wednesday, accusing it of illegally conspiring with some of the state’s largest landlords to drive up residential rents.

The complaint accused RealPage and 10 landlords of violating federal antitrust law and New Jersey consumer fraud law by collectively setting rents with RealPage’s technology, and agreeing to exchange competitively sensitive information.

New Jersey said the collusion has inflated rents for hundreds of thousands of residents. The lawsuit was filed in the federal court in Newark, New Jersey.

RealPage did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit was filed eight months after the U.S. Department of Justice and eight other states also accused RealPage of illegally using pricing algorithms to help landlords drive up apartment rents.

On April 2, RealPage sued the city of Berkeley, California, alleging that an ordinance barring landlords from using algorithms to set rents was an unconstitutional restriction on content-based speech, violating the First Amendment.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New YorkEditing by Bill Berkrot)