Despite living in a rent-controlled building in Jersey City, Kevin Weller says he’s faced “shocking” increases in his rent — $1,500 when he first renewed his lease, and then $800 for his second renewal. When Weller asked his landlord about why the rent increased so much, he says he received the same answer as other tenants who asked.
“What they were oftentimes told is, no, we can’t give you a different rate because the software is telling us what the rate is, and we have no control over it,” Weller said.
The software is a rent-setting program used by companies including RealPage to aggregate information for landlords and suggest what to charge for rent, and in some cases, suggest which apartments should be kept vacant to maximize revenue. While landlords have the final say as to how high rents should be, Weller blames RealPage, along with local leadership in Jersey City, in allowing rents to climb higher.
“The city was helping the landlord out by not enforcing rent control,” he said. “And so but for the city’s non-enforcement, RealPage would not have been able to affect the tenants here.”
Weller is the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against RealPage, which is also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for potentially violating the Sherman Antitrust Act.
In a statement, RealPage says their formula doesn’t violate antitrust laws, they denied allegations of keeping apartments vacant to raise rents, and their formula hasn’t changed much since they were investigated by the Department of Justice in 2017.
