Landlords Questioned Over Massachusetts Rent Calculation Software

Greystar, for example, is one of the largest apartment owners in the U.S. and manages luxury apartment buildings on Revere Beach and in Boston’s Seaport that command some of the highest rents in the state. Avalon Bay, another national company that received the letter Wednesday, owns 35 residential properties in Massachusetts.

The letters — signed by Warren, Markey and Moulton — asked the companies to provide information about their use of RealPage software and whether it was used to inflate rent prices in Massachusetts.

“Massachusetts is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis; rents in the Commonwealth are now the highest in the nation,” the letters read. “In the face of this crisis, we are extremely concerned that corporate landlords are taking advantage of Massachusetts tenants by coercing them into illegal price-fixing schemes.”

The other Massachusetts landlords that received letters Wednesday were Bozzuto Group, Equity Residential, UDR, Bell Partners, AIR Communities, Related Companies, Gables Residential, Cushman and Wakefield, Brookfield Properties, Lincoln Property and WinnResidential, a property management company owned by Massachusetts-based WinnCompanies.

A spokesman for Winn, one of the state’s largest builders and owners of public housing, said earlier this month that Winn no longer uses the software and dismissed claims made in a class-action lawsuit a group of tenants filed against RealPage and companies that allegedly used the software.

“It’s important to note that… 90 percent of the apartments managed by WinnResidential are income or rent restricted, meaning rents are set based on household income and thresholds set annually by the government.”

RealPage has defended its software, saying it is legal, and each of the landlords named in the software lawsuits has disputed the allegations of price gouging. In a statement on its website, RealPage called the allegations in the DOJ and class action lawsuits false, saying its customers are free to set their own rent prices and its software does not inflate rents.

Warren and other lawmakers have been investigating RealPage since ProPublica published an investigation in 2022 that exposed the use of the software. They said the algorithm was used to set prices for more than 4 million units nationwide and relies on information from more than 13 million units. By collecting pricing information from competing landlords, the algorithm sets the maximum rent the market will tolerate, and ProPublica reported that RealPage executives boasted that the software caused double-digit price increases in some rental markets.

“RealPage’s software is designed to maximize price increases, minimize price discounts, and maximize landlords’ pricing power,” the Justice Department said in a press release earlier this month.

Warren, who has long condemned corporate landlords as hurting ordinary tenants, said Wednesday that the key to solving the broader housing crisis is curbing tactics that inflate rent prices.

“In the housing crisis, people are being caught in all sorts of ways,” Warren said. “There’s not enough supply. Private equity investors are buying up properties left and right. And corporate landlords are ripping off tenants. All of these problems are compounding and leaving Massachusetts families struggling.”

Andrew Brinker can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @andrewnbrinker.