{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-markey-moulton-demand-answers-from-corporate-landlords-in-massachusetts-allegedly-using-rent-hiking-algorithm", "Warren, Markey, Moulton Demand Answers From Corporate Landlords in Massachusetts Allegedly Using Rent-Hiking Algorithm", "2024-09-19", "2024", "2024-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "MA", "Elizabeth Warren", "W000817", "www.warren.senate.gov", "warren", "https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "Warren, Markey, Moulton Demand Answers From Corporate Landlords in Massachusetts Allegedly Using Rent-Hiking Algorithm\n\nLawmakers push landlords to cut ties with RealPage, company behind software allegedly used to share proprietary data and hike rents\n\nText of Letters (PDF)\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and Representative Seth Moulton (D-MA-06), today demanded answers from 13 corporate landlords operating in Massachusetts, asking these companies whether they are using RealPage\u2019s algorithm to raise rents for Massachusetts families.\n\nLast month, the Department of Justice and attorneys general in eight states filed a major antitrust lawsuit alleging that RealPage\u2019s software enabled landlords to collude to raise rents and accusing RealPage of monopolizing the market with its rent-setting software.\n\nThe lawmakers sent the letters to the following companies: Greystar, Bozzuto Group, Avalon Bay, Equity Residential, UDR, Bell Partners, AIR Communities, Related Companies, Gables Residential, Cushman and Wakefield, Brookfield Properties, WinnResidential, and Lincoln Property.\n\n\u201cMassachusetts is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis; rents in the Commonwealth are currently the highest in the country. In the midst of this crisis, we are extraordinarily concerned that corporate landlords are taking advantage of renters in Massachusetts, gouging them with illegal price-fixing schemes,\u201d wrote the lawmakers.\n\nA 2022 investigation into RealPage led by Senator Warren found evidence that some of the largest corporate landlords were sharing proprietary information with RealPage, whose software appeared to be \u201cfacilitating de-facto price setting and driving rapid [rent] inflation.\u201d The recent Justice Department lawsuit revealed even more information about RealPage\u2019s alleged price-fixing scheme.\n\nIn the new letter, the lawmakers pushed the companies to cut ties with RealPage and stop using the company\u2019s software. The lawmakers also highlighted the real-life impacts of RealPage\u2019s harmful tactics on renters in Massachusetts and beyond.\n\n\u201cIn 2022, a vice president of RealPage touted that apartment rents had increased by over 14.5%, stating \u2018I think [the software is] driving it, quite honestly.\u2019 In Seattle, rents rose by 33% in a RealPage-priced building over the course of 2021, while they rose by 3.9% in a comparable building that didn\u2019t use the algorithm. For renters across the country and in the Commonwealth, RealPage\u2019s tools are alleged to have enabled landlords to hike rents well above fair market value in the midst of a statewide and national affordable housing crisis,\u201d wrote the lawmakers.\n\nSenator Warren has long led the fight to make housing more affordable for families and has held companies accountable for their role in exacerbating housing costs:\n\nIn August 2024, Senators Warren (D-Mass.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), sent letters to each of the 11 Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBanks) urging them to contribute at least 20% of their net income to affordable housing and other critical community grant programs.\n\nIn July 2024, Senators Warren and Raphael Warnock (D-GA), and Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO-5) reintroduced the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, the landmark legislation to tackle the housing crisis, bring down costs for renters and buyers, and help working families everywhere find a decent place to live at a decent price.\n\nIn July 2024, Senator Warren and Representative Sara Jacobs led Senator Tim Kaine, Senator Jon Ossoff, Representative Ro Khanna, and Representative James Moylan in calling out the Department of Defense (DoD) for failing to protect military families living in military housing operated by private companies under the Military Housing Privatization Initiative (MHPI).\n\nIn June 2024, Senator Warren sent a letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) urging the agency to address our country\u2019s affordable housing crisis by reforming the broken Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) System.\n\nIn May 2024, Senator Warren reintroduced the Public Housing Emergency Response Act to address the estimated $70 billion backlog of maintenance and repairs in our nation\u2019s public housing, which would allow tenants to live in safe conditions and ensure that, as we fight to end the housing crisis by expanding the supply of affordable housing, we are not losing existing units to disrepair.\n\nIn April 2024, At a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, U.S. Senator Warren called out the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLBs) for failing to deliver on their mission to provide affordable housing as the country faces a housing crisis.\n\nIn January 2024, Senator Warren, John Hickenlooper, Jacky Rosen, and Sheldon Whitehouse sent a letter to Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell, calling on the Fed to reverse its troubling interest rate hikes that have driven mortgage rates to 20-year highs and have put affordable housing out of reach for too many Americans.\n\nIn March 2023, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Tina Smith, and Bernie Sanders sent a letter to Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice (DOJ) calling for the DOJ to investigate YieldStar following new findings from their investigation of RealPage\u2019s YieldStar product.\n\nIn January 2023, Senator Warren, and Representative Jamaal Bowman led a letter with 48 lawmakers, urging President Biden to use every tool he has to address rent inflation, end corporate price gouging in the rental market, and ensure that renters and people experiencing homelessness across this country are stably housed this winter.\n\nIn November 2022, Senators Warren, Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to RealPage CEO Dana Jones, expressing concern about RealPage\u2019s algorithmic pricing software, YieldStar, and its role in driving rising rents and exacerbating inflation.\n\nIn August 2022, at a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (BHUA) Committee hearing, Senator Warren called out corporate landlords\u2019 growing role in the rental market and emphasized the need for a Tenant Protection Bureau to hold corporate landlords accountable and protect renters from extreme rent hikes, illegal eviction, and other predatory practices.\n\nIn May 2022, Senators Warren and Reed sent a letter to Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Marcia Fudge, calling on HUD to preserve homeownership affordability for American families as Wall Street firms expand their activity in the housing market.\n\nIn March 2022, at a BHUA Committee hearing, Senator Warren called out Wall Street\u2019s role in worsening the housing affordability crisis for seniors by buying up manufactured home communities\n\nIn February 2022, Senator Warren called out private equity firms and other big investors for exacerbating inflation and locking families out of affordable housing opportunities.\n\nIn January 2022, Senator Warren sent letters to the CEOs of three private equity-backed firms\u2014Progress Residential, American Homes 4 Rent, and Invitation Homes \u2014calling out their growing activity in the housing market that has resulted in rent hikes and unaffordable homes for first-time buyers.\n\nIn August 2021, during a hearing exchange with Senator Warren, a Department of Housing and Urban Development nominee committed to consider changes that facilitate sales of distressed homes to homeowners, not private equity firms.\n\nIn July 2021, Senator Warren called on large corporate landlords to avoid needless evictions as the CDC eviction moratorium neared expiration.\n\nIn May 2021, at a hearing, Senator Warren made the case for her American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, which would create a new housing innovation grant program to reduce exclusionary local zoning laws.\n\nOn April 2021, Senator Warren and Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-Mo.) reintroduced the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act to bring down the costs for renters and buyers, level the playing field so working families can find a decent place to live at a decent price, reduce exclusionary zoning laws, and take a step towards addressing the effects of decades of housing discrimination on communities of color.\n\nIn May 2019, Senator Warren and then-Representative Dave Loebsack (D-Iowa) wrote to the private equity firms behind some of the country's largest manufactured housing communities to request information about their use of predatory practices to boost profits in the communities they own.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:46:43Z"]], "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://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-markey-moulton-demand-answers-from-corporate-landlords-in-massachusetts-allegedly-using-rent-hiking-algorithm"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.964839804917574, "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"}