Washington, D.C. — In response to news that the San Francisco Board President Aaron Peskin has introduced a first-in-nation municipal ordinance to ban algorithmic price setting in the rental housing market, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“Amid a generational housing crisis, RealPage’s revenue management software has allowed corporate landlords to hike rents and restrict housing supply in cities across the country, causing greater housing instability for young people, long-term renters, and entire communities,” said Lee Hepner, Sr. Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. “This big tent policy is consistent with efforts to increase housing supply and shifts the focus from maximizing investor returns to ensuring housing affordability. We applaud San Francisco for taking this bold step, and encourage other municipal and state lawmakers to follow San Francisco’s lead.”

The use of algorithmic price-fixing software is a fast-emerging threat in to rental housing affordability. Companies like RealPage—whose software helps landlords coordinate to set rents above competitive levels and raise marginal profits, even at lower occupancy rates—have been connected to affordability crises in cities from Seattle to Atlanta. In San Francisco, approximately 70% of multifamily apartment buildings use revenue management software like that offered by RealPage. Defendants

RealPage and similar price fixing algorithms have attracted growing federal and state scrutiny since October 2022, when public reporting first began highlighting RealPage’s impact on rental housing markets. In his March 2024 State of the Union Address, President Biden highlighted the need to combat algorithmic price fixing in rental housing markets as part of his Administration’s economic agenda. Enforcement efforts include multi-district class action litigation in the Middle District of Tennessee, and federal and state antitrust lawsuits complaints filed by the DC Attorney General Schwalb and Arizona Attorney General Mayes. Meanwhile, Congress has proposed the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act to ban landlords from using third-party rent-setting software that coordinates price and supply information.

In May 2024, the FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid against an Atlanta-based property management company in apparent connection to the RealPage scandal. The Department of Justice is reportedly on the verge of filing an antitrust suit against RealPage.

Earlier this year, Economic Liberties and Local Progress released a joint brief outlining the tools that states and municipalities can use to combat the threat on their own.

Read our joint memo with Local Progress here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.