Revolving Door Project welcomes Justice Department lawsuit against rent gouging RealPage
Contact: Andrea Beaty, (email protected)
In response to the lawsuit filed today by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division and eight states, the Revolving Door Project issued the following statement:
Andrea Beaty, research director of the revolving door project said: “Today, federal regulators took a tremendous step to bring down the high rent prices that have plagued Americans for years. As the Justice Department’s lawsuit argues, RealPage replaced competition among its landlord customers with coordination and used that power to keep rental prices artificially high for millions of Americans. The company’s allegedly illegal actions resulted in renters across the country literally paying the price for corporate greed, even in the midst of a global pandemic.”
“The Justice Department and eight states appear to have listened to tenant organizations that have long warned that rent is way too damn high. This lawsuit will hopefully usher in a renewed corporate responsibility in the rental market that goes beyond RealPage, which is far from the only company capitalizing on tenants’ struggles to live in safe and affordable housing. We hope that in addition to the eight attorneys general suing RealPage on a bipartisan basis, more attorneys general will join in responding to RealPage’s actions that are driving up rental costs in communities across their states.”
“As the cost of living dominates the presidential election debate, it is the media’s duty to ask candidates whether they would retain the political appointees who built the case against Realpage and other companies that exploit ordinary Americans.”
###
