JOB VACANCY ADMIN PABRIK JERSEY GAJI BESAR

 The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division has opened an investigation into whether rent-setting software made by a Texas-based real estate tech company is facilitating collusion among landlords, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

The inquiry is being launched as questions have arisen about a 2017 merger between RealPage and its largest pricing competitor. The source told ProPublica some DOJ staff raised concerns about the merger but were overridden by political appointees of former President Donald Trump..

The letters raised concerns that RealPage’s pricing software could be pushing rents above competitive levels and allowing big landlords to coordinate their pricing in violation of federal antitrust laws.

are concerned that the use of this rate setting software essentially amounts to a cartel to artificially inflate rental rates in multifamily residential buildings,” three senators said  the Minnesota Democrat who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights.

The Capital Forumof the investigation and some details on Tuesday.

RealPage’s software works by collecting information from property managers who are the company’s clients, including what rents they are able to charge tenants. That information is fed into an algorithm that then recommends prices daily for each available apartment.

Though RealPage says the information is aggregated and anonymized, some experts have said using private data from competitors to set rents could run afoul of antitrust laws, allowing property managers to illegally coordinate their pricing.

ProPublica found the software is widely used in some markets: In one downtown Seattle ZIP code, 70% of more than 9,000 apartments were controlled by just 10 property managers — every one of which used RealPage’s pricing software in at least some of its buildings.

RealPage did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company has said RealPage “uses aggregated market data from a variety of sources in a legally compliant manner.” The company said its software prioritizes a property’s own internal supply and demand dynamics over external factors like competitors’ rents. The company also said its software helps reduce the risk of collusion that would occur if landlords relied on phone surveys of competitors to manually price their units.