The late Adlai Stevenson, JFK's UN Ambassador, wisely said, "As scarce as truth is, the supply seems greater than the demand."
Will Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody file an antitrust lawsuit against large apartment landlords alleged to use the algorithm and services of RealPage to fix and raise prices for rental housing?
What about our Florida Governor, legislators and City and County Commissioners? I've spoken to County Commissioners about this alleged price-fixing scheme, allegedly a violation of the antitrust laws. No response. But in the past County Commission has granted special favors to land owners who in return give Commissioners special treats -- campaign contributions. As former California State Treasurer Jesse Unruh said, "money is the mother's milk of politics."
Three cheers for North Carolina's gutsy new Attorney General, Jeff Jackson, a Democrat. (Full disclosure: I reckon I sent him a small contribution once.)
From WRAL:
New NC attorney general's first lawsuit alleges major apartment landlords colluded on rent increases
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson sued half a dozen large companies that own thousands of apartments and other housing units, alleging Tuesday that they've been illegally colluding to raise rents, instead of competing with one another in a fair market — and, in the process, purportedly bilking renters out of millions of dollars.
The lawsuit began under Jackson's predecessor Josh Stein, a Democrat who won the 2024 election for governor. It was filed in federal court in North Carolina. Eight other states, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice, have joined in the case. Jackson was sworn in on Wednesday.
The lawsuit had previously only targeted RealPage, a software company that works with landlords and real estate companies by using an algorithm to suggest rent prices. In a new filing Tuesday, Jackson and the other state attorneys general broadened the lawsuit to include large real estate companies.
The lawsuit says such technology destroys competition in the rental market — since if a large number of landlords all raise prices to roughly the same level, they won't be at risk of losing out to competitors charging less.
None of the companies sued Tuesday are headquartered in North Carolina. But Jackson said in a new release that they own a combined 70,000 housing units in North Carolina — including one-third of all of the one- or two-bedroom apartments in the Raleigh, Charlotte and Durham-Chapel Hill metro areas.
"They harm landlords who are trying to play fairly and follow the rules," said Jackson, a Democrat who won the 2024 election for attorney general with 51% of the vote.
The lawsuit says that in 2000, the typical American renter without a college degree paid 30% of his or her income for rent. By 2017, that had risen to 42% of income going toward rent.
Similarly, the lawsuit says, the typical college graduate's spending on rent spiked from 25% of their income in 2000 to 34% in 2017.
And with housing prices also rising, the lawsuit says, people have had no choice but to keep staying in apartments even as those rents also skyrocket: "Shelter is a basic, foundational necessity of life," the states said in Tuesday's legal filing. "And for tens of millions of Americans, conventional multifamily apartment buildings are the only reasonable option for much of their lives. Many renters cannot afford the significant down payment needed to purchase a single-family home, among other requirements."
The landlords haven't filed a response in court yet. Last month RealPage sought to dismiss the lawsuit, noting it has been sued multiple times over alleged price-fixing but has won at least one of those lawsuits.
"This case is the latest in a series of baseless antitrust lawsuits concerning certain revenue management software sold by RealPage," the company wrote. "In earlier filed class actions now centralized in the Middle District of Tennessee, the court rejected the theory that the use of RealPage’s RMS amounts to a price-fixing conspiracy that is per se unlawful under the antitrust laws. Further, over the past few years, RealPage has produced data and other discovery to the Plaintiffs here — in their pre-filing investigations — that indisputably disproves a number of false allegations made in prior lawsuits."
1 comment:
It's bad here in Florida too. These hogs squeeze every dime possible out of everyone. It's only gonna get worse too because now it's a one party state whose members pay homage to the orange clown show. He's the poster child of grifters.
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