{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://goldman.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-dan-goldman-urges-new-york-attorney-general-investigate-potential", "Congressman Dan Goldman Urges New York Attorney General to Investigate Potential Rental Market Manipulation and Price Gouging by Realpage, Inc.", "2023-11-28", "2023", "2023-11", "Democrat", "House", "NY", "Daniel S. Goldman", "G000599", "goldman.house.gov", "goldman", "https://goldman.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "RealPage\u2019s Price Optimization Software Recommends Artificially Inflated Rent Prices, Potentially Incentivizes Market Manipulation and Anti-Competitive Landlord Behavior\n\nRealPage Clients Include Many of Largest NYC Landlords; Potential Contributor to Housing Affordability Crisis in New York\n\nRead the Letter Here\n\nNew York, NY \u2013 Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10) today sent a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James calling for her office to investigate the multinational, multi-billion dollar company RealPage Inc., which has been accused of anticompetitive behavior and manipulating market rent rates through their price optimization software, YieldStar.\n\nYieldStar analyzes non-public rental data from RealPage\u2019s multitude of clients to recommend artificially inflated rent prices, facilitating pricing collusion and eliminating traditional market competition.\n\nRealPage is a Texas-based company whose stated goal is to help \u201cowners, operators, property managers and investors unlock value faster and achieve peak performance\u2026\u201d Their clients include some of New York City\u2019s largest landlords and property managers, including Equity Residential, Greystar, and Cushman & Wakefield.\n\n\u201cAs the dire need for affordable housing continues to grow in New York City, I urge you to investigate the multinational company RealPage Inc., which has been accused of anticompetitive behavior and manipulating market rent rates through their price optimization software,\u201d Congressman Dan Goldman wrote. \u201cA number of New York\u2019s largest landlords are among RealPage\u2019s clients and potential benefactors from this possible anticompetitive price-fixing.\u201d\n\nIn New York City, the average monthly rent is $5,158 and $3,909 in Manhattan and Brooklyn respectively, a 22 percent and 13 percent increase from February 2020 levels, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Nearly half of New Yorkers pay over 30 percent of their income on rent and nearly a quarter report that over half of their income goes to rent payments.\n\n\u201cThere is clearly broad interest in holding bad actors accountable for using anticompetitive practices in the rental market in the United States,\u201d Congressman Dan Goldman continued. \u201cTheir abhorrent behavior favors profits over affordability for the many low- and moderate-income families in our cities and neighborhoods desperate for reasonably priced housing. This is an issue that is particularly acute in my Tenth Congressional District in New York, where rent prices continue to grow at a rate that far outpaces what residents can afford.\u201d\n\nRealPage has recently come under intense scrutiny during the current affordable housing crisis. Both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission have been asked to investigate and review the use of RealPage\u2019s price optimization software. State Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb in the District of Columbia has filed a lawsuit against RealPage, alleging anti-trust rental market manipulation. There were also over 20 private civil lawsuits filed in the state of Tennessee that have since been consolidated. The DOJ has filed a memorandum in Tennessee in support of these lawsuits.\n\nCongressman Goldman is committed to supporting New York\u2019s working families by ensuring they have access to safe, quality, affordable housing.\n\nAs one of his first acts in Congress, Goldman and Congresswoman Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez (NY-07) introduced the \u2018Public Housing Emergency Response Act.\u2019 This bill would allocate $70 billion in funding for capital repairs and upgrades to public housing throughout the country. $32 billion of the allotted aid would be expected to flow directly to the New York City Housing Authority, the nation\u2019s largest Public Housing Authority.\n\nAdditionally, the Congressman cosponsored the 'Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act' to expand and strengthen the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and spur collaboration between private-sector resources and state-level government administration to build and rehabilitate millions of affordable homes across the country.\n\nCongressman Goldman is also founding member of the Congressional Renter\u2019s Caucus which will work to expand assistance for all eligible cost-burdened renters, eliminate bureaucratic and discriminatory barriers to accessing affordable housing; and improve the quality, availability, and affordability of our nation\u2019s rental housing stock.\n\nRead the letter here or below:\n\nDear Attorney General James,\n\nAs the dire need for affordable housing continues to grow in New York City, I urge you to investigate the multinational company RealPage Inc., which has been accused of anticompetitive behavior and manipulating market rent rates through their price optimization software. A number of New York\u2019s largest landlords are among RealPage\u2019s clients and potential benefactors from this possible anticompetitive price-fixing.\n\nRealPage Inc. is a Texas-based company whose stated goal is to help \u201cowners, operators, property managers and investors unlock value faster and achieve peak performance\u2026\u201d, and in 2021 the company was valued at $10.2 billion. Among their suite of products is a software tool targeted to landlords which analyzes large swaths of rental data from competitors operating in the same market and recommends artificially inflated rent prices based on non-public pricing information. In fact, their website boasts that they can help clients \u201cachieve a 3% - 7% revenue lift.\u201d\n\nThis tool, dubbed YieldStar, is particularly dangerous because it relies on unfiltered access to a market\u2019s competitive data set. Moreover, in 2017, RealPage completed a merger with their largest pricing competitor, Lease Rent Options (LRO), making them a preeminent price optimization provider. Included in their long list of clients are some of New York City\u2019s largest landlords and property managers, including Equity Residential, Greystar, and Cushman & Wakefield. RealPage now has unprecedented access to public and private landlord data in New York City, which facilitates pricing collusion and eliminates traditional market competition.\n\nAn investigation by ProPublica in 2017 revealed that \u201cRealPage discourages bargaining with renters and has even recommended that landlords in some cases accept a lower occupancy rate in order to raise rents and make more money.\u201d The report also noted that as many as 90% of suggestions made to apartment managers through the YieldStar product are adopted. In New York City, rent prices have become an increasingly overwhelming burden for renters, with new leases averaging $5,158 and $3,909 in Manhattan and Brooklyn, respectively. Those numbers reflect a 22% and 13% increase from February 2020 levels. With rents skyrocketing in New York, I urge you to investigate how RealPage may have contributed to this situation through their anti-competitive pricing behavior.\n\nFurther, RealPage has been the target of scrutiny by lawmakers across the country. In November 2022, Senators Klobuchar, Durbin and Booker wrote to Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter at the Department of Justice (DOJ), asking the Antitrust Division to open an investigation into RealPage. That same month, Chairman Sherrod Brown of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan, asking her to review the use of \u201cprice optimization software employed by property owners to set rents,\u201d specifically citing YieldStar. A group of members from the House, led by Congressman Jes\u00fas G. \u201cChuy\u201d Garc\u00eda, also wrote to both the DOJ and the FTC echoing the Senators\u2019 sentiments.\n\nIn addition, there have also been a number of lawsuits filed against RealPage including one filed by Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb in the District of Columbia, and one in Tennessee that combines over 20 suits filed against the company. On November 6th, 2023, the DOJ officially filed a memorandum with the Tennessee case in support of the antitrust lawsuits filed against RealPage.\n\nThere is clearly broad interest in holding bad actors accountable for using anticompetitive practices in the rental market in the United States. Their abhorrent behavior favors profits over affordability for the many low- and moderate-income families in our cities and neighborhoods desperate for reasonably priced housing. This is an issue that is particularly acute in my Tenth Congressional District in New York, where rent prices continue to grow at a rate that far outpaces what residents can afford.\n\nI therefore urge you to investigate RealPage and its clients for further evidence of anti-competitive, anti-consumer behavior in New York State.\n\nThank you for your consideration.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T01:01:09Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://goldman.house.gov/media/press-releases/congressman-dan-goldman-urges-new-york-attorney-general-investigate-potential"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3996558263897896, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}