WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) – Attorney General Josh Stein and several other state attorneys general filed a lawsuit on Friday, August 23, accusing RealPage of violating antitrust laws and enforcing artificially high rent prices.

The company sells “revenue management software” to property managers and operates across the country and state, particularly in the Triangle and Charlotte-Mecklenburg regions. Wilmington is also one of the areas where the company operates.

“In exchange for purchasing and using this software, property managers provide RealPage with detailed, nonpublic and competitively sensitive data, including information about units coming to market, the rent they charge and discounts.

“RealPage uses this nonpublic information to suggest a price that property managers should charge for their apartments to make more money. Then RealPage uses a number of strategies to get its clients to automatically accept these recommendations. When they do so, prices for comparable apartments are artificially inflated and renters cannot find a better deal by shopping around,” the Attorney General’s Office explains.

According to Shinica Thomas, chair of the Wake County Board of Commissioners, the average rent in Wake County increased 40 percent between 2010 and 2020.

“Access to affordable housing is becoming increasingly difficult,” said Monica Burks, legal counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending. “Anti-competitive practices that drive up already high housing costs are disadvantaging individuals and families who work hard to meet this basic need.”

The full complaint, as filed in the Middle District of North Carolina by Stein, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the attorneys general of California, Connecticut, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington, can be found online.

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