Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton wrote to 13 large landlords in the state on Wednesday — including at least two with residential properties in the Pioneer Valley — about their potential use of software from RealPage that they say is key to an alleged scheme to increase rents.
“Massachusetts is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis; rents in the Commonwealth are currently the highest in the country,” the legislators wrote in their letters. “In the midst of this crisis, we are extraordinarily concerned that corporate landlords are taking advantage of renters in Massachusetts, gouging them with illegal price-fixing schemes.”
The letters come on the heels of a Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against RealPage. Filed in late August in a North Carolina federal court with eight state attorneys general, the complaint alleges RealPage trains algorithmic pricing software on private rent and lease data provided by landlords. It accuses the company of price-fixing.
“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 B. Garland said last month.
RealPage said the lawsuit’s claims had no merit, The Associated Pressreported. The company has not yet filed its response in the DOJ’s lawsuit.
A 2022 ProPublica investigation into the RealPage software, YieldStar, showed how the price suggestion tool may be increasing prices in areas across the country. Months later, lawmakers including Warren released an investigation that found the tool could create “de-facto price-setting.”
In the recent letter, Warren, Markey and Moulton wrote to Greystar, Bozzuto Group, Avalon Bay, Equity Residential, UDR, Bell Partners, AIR Communities, Related Companies, Gables Residential, Cushman and Wakefield, Brookfield Properties, WinnResidential and Lincoln Property.
Most of the companies’ Massachusetts properties appear to be concentrated in the greater Boston area. But at least two have property in Western Massachusetts. Greystar’s website lists one property in Amherst with rent for a one-bedroom of $2,533.
WinnResidential’s website lists six properties in Springfield as well as apartments in Greenfield, Amherst, Chicopee and Westfield. That includes the new 31 Elm, which is mostly market rate units and 15 units of workforce housing that are priced lower. It also includes the Museum Park Apartments which are income restricted. Most of the company’s units in Springfield — 783 of the 872 — are income and rent restricted affordable units, said Ed Cafasso, a spokesperson for the company.
“WinnCompanies has never used the YieldStar or AIRM software products mentioned in the letter from members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation,” Cafasso said. And it has not used the RealPage software for “revenue management” for a year, which took no part in determining rents in low-income, affordable or workforce housing units, he said.
In the lawmakers’ letter, they said WinnResidential was being sued for alleged use of the tool. It is part of a multidistrict litigationsuing RealPage and many other property owners and managers. “The company was surprised and disappointed to have been included in the litigation against RealPage and is seeking to be removed from the complaint,” Cafasso said in a statement.
Warren, Markey and Moulton ask the 13 companies a slew of questions, including if they use RealPage’s price setting tool, what average rents were while using the tool, whether they share data with RealPage and how often they choose the tool’s suggested rent price.
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