BrandWikiReturn

RealPage

RealPage, Inc. is an American software company specialized in property management software for algorithmic rent setting. It is owned by the private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Its services are used to manage more than 24 million housing units worldwide in multifamily, commercial, single-family, and vacation rentals.[2]

In 2024, the United States Department of Justice sued RealPage, alleging that its software represented a price fixing scheme to raise rents. San Francisco banned algorithmic rent pricing in August 2024.[3] Since 2025, Dirk Wakeham has been the president and chief executive officer.[4]

History

RealPage was founded in 1998 with the acquisition of Rent Roll, Inc.,[5] a provider of on-premises property management systems for the conventional and affordable multifamily rental housing markets. RealPage moved its corporate headquarters to Richardson, Texas in 2016, and in 2017 acquired four companies: apartment market data provider Axiometrics; utility and energy management company American Utility Management; revenue management and pricing provider Lease Rent Options; and On-Site, a leasing and marketing platform company.[6]

In 2018, RealPage announced an agreement to purchase electronic payment platform company ClickPay, located in Hackensack, New Jersey.[7] In July 2019, RealPage acquired utility management company SimpleBills.[8] In December 2019, RealPage acquired Buildium.[9] In January 2020, RealPage has agreed to acquire Modern Message, Inc.[10] In September 2020, RealPage acquired real estate IoT startup Stratis.[11]

In December 2020, private-equity firm Thoma Bravo announced it would acquire RealPage for $9.6 billion, paying $88.75 per share for the company, a premium of 31% for its closing prices at the time. Its shares were reported up 26% that year.[12] The acquisition completed in April 2021.[13] In January 2021, RealPage acquired bulk Internet provider WhiteSky.[14] Later, in May of that same year, RealPage acquired Boingo Wireless's Multifamily Business.[15]

In July 2025, RealPage acquired Livble, a payment processing firm that offers an installment-based rent payment system for which it charges a fee.[16]

Reactions and lawsuits

RealPage has been accused of antitrust violations and price fixing in the rental market.[17] Lawsuits against RealPage make the claim that if it is illegal for an individual to engage in price fixing, then it should be illegal when it is done by software or algorithm.[18] The lawsuits also accuse RealPage of pressuring its customers to comply with its pricing suggestions.[18]

Lawsuits

In October 2022, ProPublica reported that landlords use RealPage's asset optimization algorithm called YieldStar (later rebranded as AI Revenue Management) to increase rents throughout the United States, naming its users an illegal cartel that encouraged participants to withhold rental units from the market. Approximately 90% of property managers/landlords approve price changes suggested by the software. RealPage's software strongly discourages landlord users from negotiating rent prices with tenants.[19] In November 2022, the United States Department of Justice's Antitrust Division opened an investigation into RealPage, which is accused of contributing to higher rent prices throughout the United States. The company's YieldStar software is alleged to use an algorithm to "help landlords push the highest possible rents on tenants."[20] In November 2023, Attorney General of the District of Columbia Brian Schwalb filed an antitrust price-fixing lawsuit against RealPage and more than a dozen of the largest apartment building landlords in Washington, D.C., accusing them of illegally conspiring to set rental prices artificially high by sharing competitively sensitive data using RealPage's revenue management platform.[21]

In April 2023, more than 20 private civil antitrust lawsuits against RealPage, which had been filed primarily on behalf of renters of multifamily apartments and which alleged that the company illegally conspired to keep prices above market rates, were consolidated in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee.[22] In November 2023, the US Justice Department filed a "statement of interest" in support of the lawsuits, arguing that the use of shared data and algorithms must "be subject to the same condemnation" as other price-fixing schemes.[23][24] In December 2023, Chief US District Judge Waverly Crenshaw denied RealPage's bid to dismiss the consolidated lawsuits.[25] In August 2024, the Department of Justice along with the Attorneys General of eight states filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against RealPage, alleging that the company engaged in an "unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords" and sought "to monopolize the market for commercial revenue management software that landlords use to price apartments," thereby harming millions of renters by depriving them of the benefits of competition.[26][27]

In April 2025, the Attorney General of New Jersey Matt Platkin filed a lawsuit against RealPage and 10 New Jersey-based landlords, accusing them of working together as "a rent-setting cartel" and colluding to use RealPage's "anticompetitive algorithm" to raise rents in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the New Jersey Antitrust Act, and the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act.[28][29]

Bans

In January 2024, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Peter Welch introduced federal legislation, titled the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act of 2024, that would ban the coordination of rental housing price information, as well as prohibiting the use of services of companies such as RealPage and Yardi that allow landlords to coordinate rental housing prices.[30][31]

In August 2024, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an ordinance banning landlords from using software or algorithms, such as those offered by RealPage and Yardi, to set rents or manage occupancy within the city.[3] Similar bans have been adopted in Jersey City, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Portland, San Diego, and Seattle.[32][33][34]

In May 2025, the Colorado state legislature passed a bill banning algorithmic price setting of rents, but the bill was vetoed by Governor Jared Polis.[32] In October 2025, a ban on algorithmic price setting of rents was signed into law in New York state by Governor Kathy Hochul, following a similar bill being signed into law in California in September 2025.[35] RealPage filed a lawsuit against the New York ban in November 2025, alleging it was an "unconstitutional ban on lawful speech."[36]

Further reading

External links

References

  1. RealPage Careers and Job Openings^
  2. James Rodriguez. Landlords are using a popular software tool to jack up your rent Business Insider, 2024-04-10, retrieved 2024-08-03^
  3. Ruth Dusseault News • •. New San Francisco ordinance bans algorithmic rent pricing tools NBC Bay Area, 2024-09-04, retrieved 2024-09-05^
  4. Management Team RealPage.com, retrieved April 12, 2026^
  5. Rent Roll, Inc. and RealPage Communications, Inc. Merge Business Wire, 11 December 1998, retrieved February 24, 2016^
  6. Ben Lane. RealPage continues expanding, agrees to buy On-Site for $250 million - Acquiring leasing and marketing platform for rental properties housingwire.com, August 2, 2017, retrieved June 28, 2018^
  7. BRIEF-Realpage To Acquire Clickpay For $218.5 Mln Reuters, April 20, 2018, retrieved June 28, 2018^
  8. Brian Womack. RealPage makes another purchase – and this time it's a Texas technology firm Dallas Business Journal, retrieved July 29, 2019^
  9. RealPage to Acquire Buildium realpage.com, retrieved July 7, 2020^
  10. RealPage to Acquire Modern Message Business Wire, retrieved February 6, 2020^
  11. Frederic Lardinois. RealPage acquires real estate IoT startup Stratis techcrunch.com, August 31, 2020, retrieved September 3, 2020^
  12. Miriam Gottfried, Cara Lombardo. Thoma Bravo Agrees to Buy RealPage for $9.6 Billion Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2020, retrieved December 22, 2020^
  13. Thoma Bravo Completes Acquisition of RealPage retrieved April 22, 2021^
  14. RealPage® Acquires WhiteSky Communications January 4, 2021, retrieved January 4, 2021^
  15. M&A Advisory: RealPage Has Acquired Boingo's Multifamily Business From Boingo Stephens, 2021-05-27, retrieved 2024-08-29^
  16. Emma Roth. RealPage goes from setting rent to collecting it The Verge, 2025-07-18, retrieved 2025-08-03^
  17. Amanda Hoover. RealPage Has Been Accused of Price-Fixing Rents. Now It's on the Offensive Wired, 17 July 2024, retrieved 11 August 2024^
  18. Rogé Karma. We're Entering an AI Price-Fixing Dystopia The Atlantic, 10 August 2024, retrieved 11 August 2024^
  19. Heather Vogell, Haru Coryne, Ryan Little. Rent Going Up? One Company's Algorithm Could Be Why. ProPublica, October 15, 2022, retrieved October 15, 2022^
  20. Emma Roth. The DOJ is reportedly investigating rent-setting software company RealPage The Verge, November 26, 2022, retrieved November 26, 2022^
  21. Mike Scarcella. DC sues tech company RealPage, landlords over rental prices Reuters, 2023-11-02, retrieved 2024-05-23^
  22. Mike Scarcella. RealPage antitrust lawsuits over rent prices consolidated in Tennessee Reuters, 2023-04-10, retrieved 2024-05-23^
  23. Mike Scarcella. Renters suing RealPage get US backing in pricing lawsuits Reuters, 2023-11-16, retrieved 2024-05-22^
  24. Heather Vogell. DOJ Backs Tenants in Case Alleging Price-Fixing by Big Landlords and a Real Estate Tech Company ProPublica, 2023-11-16, retrieved 2024-05-23^
  25. Mike Scarcella. RealPage must face renters' price-fixing lawsuit over multifamily housing Reuters, 2023-12-29, retrieved 2024-05-23^
  26. Justice Department Sues RealPage for Algorithmic Pricing Scheme that Harms Millions of American Renters United States Department of Justice, 23 August 2024, retrieved 2024-08-23^
  27. Emma Roth. US sues RealPage over rent-setting software that allegedly drove up prices The Verge, 2024-08-23, retrieved 2024-08-24^
  28. Dana DiFilippo. New Jersey sues landlords, software company over rent-fixing claims • New Jersey Monitor New Jersey Monitor, States Newsroom, 2025-04-23, retrieved 2025-06-24^
  29. Jelani Gibson. These 10 N.J. landlords are scheming with software firm to drive up rents, state says NJ.com, 2025-04-23, retrieved 2025-06-24^
  30. Wyden and Welch Introduce Legislation to Crack down on Companies that Inflate Rents with Price-Fixing Algorithms www.wyden.senate.gov, 2024-01-30, retrieved 2024-08-24^
  31. Heather Vogell. We Found That Landlords Could Be Using Algorithms to Fix Rent Prices. Now Lawmakers Want to Make the Practice Illegal. ProPublica, 2024-01-30, retrieved 2024-08-24^
  32. Jared Brey. Several Cities Block AI-Powered Rent Gouging Governing, e.Republic, 2025-06-10, retrieved 2025-06-16^
  33. Council passes Councilmember Moore's legislation to help prevent renter displacement Seattle City Council, 2025-06-24, retrieved 2025-08-05^
  34. Taylor Griggs. Portland City Council Votes to Adopt AI Rental Price-Fixing Software Ban Portland Mercury, retrieved 2025-11-26^
  35. Giulia Heyward. Hochul signs bill banning NY landlords from using algorithm software to set rents Gothamist, 2025-10-16, retrieved 2025-10-20^
  36. David Sirota. AI Price-Fixing Is Protected by . . . the First Amendment? Jacobin, 2025-12-01, retrieved 2025-12-02^