FBI RAIDS Corporate Landlords For Rent Price Fixing

We’ve known that hedge-fund owned landlords use algorithms and AI to find and purchase property and to manage rental properties. Matt Stoller, Research Director for the American Economic Liberties Project, reports that they’re also using algorithms to price fix rental prices. And thanks to software from RealPage, other property owners can get into the price fixing game.

Price fixing, anti-trust, conspiracy, and monopoly are terms that get attention from federal law enforcement, and the Department of Justice is taking notice. “The Department of Justice is clearly deep in an investigation of RealPage and its cartel.” And now the FBI is involved. Stoller comments, “It’s also fascinating that the FBI is involved. The FBI, though historically it had a big role in antitrust investigations for its first hundred years, hasn’t really done much in this area since the early 2000s.”

This piece from Breaking Points gives an interesting assessment of the story and what it might mean. The pundits have offered theories about why rent prices have continued to increase even as vacancy rates decreased, something that is an absolute in the rental property arena. We may now have our answer - systemic price fixing!