August, 27 2024, 09:44am EDT
DOJ Complaint Reveals Startling New Details about RealPage’s Alleged Collusion on Rental Prices
Last week, the Department of Justice and eight other states sued software company RealPage for its alleged efforts to decrease competition among landlords and collude on prices in the rental housing market. The legal complaint filed includes shocking new details that confirm what many have suspected: RealPage’s algorithm has fueled high rent prices. You can read the full complaint here.
Groundwork Collaborative’s Executive Director Lindsay Owens released the following statement in reaction to the complaint:
“RealPage has been inflating rents by effectively stifling competition throughout the country. The lawsuit shows their efforts were flagrant, far-reaching, and deliberate. If RealPage is not stopped, it will soon be in more markets, driving up rent for more families.
“It’s time to shut it down.”
Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with one of Groundwork’s experts about algorithmic pricing.
- RealPage’s tactics were not restricted to software. They held in-person meetings where users of the software, corporate landlords in most cases, heard lectures about the need to “push up new and renewal pricing.”
- While pricing recommendations by RealPage were not binding, any rejection of a recommendation was escalated to an employee within RealPage. Afterwards, a “pricing advisor” would reach out to property managers and landlords to push them to take the recommendation.
- A team of RealPage staff place tens of thousands of calls every week to landlords across the country to gather nonpublic information on rent prices, occupancy rates, lease terms, and more.
- RealPage software includes an “auto accept” feature so its recommendations for property managers are not ignored or rejected.
- RealPage uses a price floor for rentals using nonpublic information so none of their users drive prices down.
- Maurice Stucke, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of multifamily-building units are priced using RealPage in more than 40 housing markets across the country.
The Groundwork Collaborative is dedicated to advancing a coherent and persuasive progressive economic worldview and narrative capable of delivering meaningful opportunity and prosperity for everyone. Our work is driven by a core guiding principle: We are the economy. Groundwork Collaborative envisions an economic system that produces strong, broadly shared prosperity and power for all people, not just a wealthy few.
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Caving to Trump, Canada Drops Tax on US Tech Firms
One journalist accused Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney of chickening out.
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Acquiescing to pressure from the Trump administration, the Canadian government announced on Sunday that the country will rescind the digital services tax, a levy that would have seen large American tech firms pay billions of dollars to Canada over the next few years.
The Sunday announcement from the Canadian government cited "anticipation of a mutually beneficial comprehensive trade arrangement" as the reason for the rescission.
"Today's announcement will support a resumption of negotiations toward the July 21, 2025, timeline set out at this month's G7 Leaders' Summit in Kananaskis," said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the statement.
The digital services tax impacts companies that make over $20 million in revenue from Canadian users and customers through digital services like online advertising and shopping. Companies like Uber and Google would have paid a 3% levy on the money they made from Canadian sources, according to CBC News.
The reversal comes after U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday blasted the digital services tax, calling it a "direct and blatant attack on our country" on Truth Social.
Trump said he was suspending trade talks between the two countries because of the tax. "Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period," Trump wrote. The United States is Canada's largest trading partner.
Payments from tech firms subject to the digital services tax were due starting on Monday, though the tax has been in effect since last year.
"The June 30, 2025 collection will be halted," and Canada's Minister of Finance "will soon bring forward legislation to rescind the Digital Services Tax Act," according to the Sunday statement.
"If Mark Carney folds in response to this pressure from Trump on the digital services tax, he proves he can be pushed around," said Canadian journalist Paris Marx on Bluesky, speaking prior to the announcement of the rescission. "The tax must be enforced," he added.
"Carney chickens out too," wrote the author Doug Henwood on Twitter on Monday.
In an opinion piece originally published in Canadian Dimension before the announcement on Sunday, Jared Walker, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Canadians for Tax Fairness, wrote that all the money generated for the tax could mean "more federal money for housing, transit, and healthcare transfers—all from some of the largest and most under-taxed companies in the world."
Walker also wrote that the digital service tax could serve as a counterweight to the so-called "revenge tax" provision in Trump's sprawling domestic tax and spending bill.
Section 899, called "Enforcement of Remedies Against Unfair Foreign Taxes," would "increase withholding taxes for non-resident individuals and companies from countries that the U.S. believes have imposed discriminatory or unfair taxes," according to CBC. The digital services tax is one of the taxes the Trump administration believes is discriminatory.
"If 'elbows up' is going to be more than just a slogan, Canada can't cave to pressure when Donald Trump throws his weight around," wrote Walker, invoking the Canadian rallying cry in the face of American antagonism when it comes to trade.
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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated over the weekend that the Senate reconciliation package, which could pass as soon as Tuesday, would slash Medicaid by more than $1 trillion and strip health insurance from nearly 12 million Americans over the next decade.
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Sanders' remarks came hours before the Senate was set to begin the notorious vote-a-rama process whereby senators can offer an unlimited number of amendments to the reconciliation package, which, if passed, would trigger what analysts have described as the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich under a single law in U.S. history.
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The U.S. president's comments came as Israel's military continued to kill Palestinians and order evacuations in the besieged enclave.
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"MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!" U.S. President Donald Trump said on social media early Sunday, as Israeli forces—armed with billions of dollars in military support from the United States—continued their nearly 21-month annihilation of the Palestinian territory.
Trump's Truth Social post came after he suggested on Friday that there could be a cease-fire deal between the Israeli government and Hamas, a Palestinian militant group that governed Gaza for nearly two decades and led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, "within the next week."
As The Associated Pressreported Sunday:
Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was set to travel to Washington this week for talks on a cease-fire, an Israeli official said, and plans were being made for Netanyahu to travel there in the coming weeks, a sign there may be movement on a deal.
Netanyahu was meeting with his Security Cabinet on Sunday evening, the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that hadn't been finalized.
Trump's post calling for a deal also came just hours after he took to his Truth Social network to criticize the corruption trial that Netanyahu faces in Israel. Some critics of the prime minister have accused him of continuing the assault on Gaza to avoid his legal issues at home.
Saturday evening, Trump wrote:
It is terrible what they are doing in Israel to Bibi Netanyahu. He is a War Hero, and a Prime Minister who did a fabulous job working with the United States to bring Great Success in getting rid of the dangerous Nuclear threat in Iran. Importantly, he is right now in the process of negotiating a Deal with Hamas, which will include getting the Hostages back. How is it possible that the Prime Minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a Courtroom all day long, over NOTHING (Cigars, Bugs Bunny Doll, etc.). It is a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT, very similar to the Witch Hunt that I was forced to endure. This travesty of “Justice” will interfere with both Iran and Hamas negotiations. In other words, it is INSANITY doing what the out-of-control prosecutors are doing to Bibi Netanyahu. The United States of America spends Billions of Dollar a year, far more than on any other Nation, protecting and supporting Israel. We are not going to stand for this. We just had a Great Victory with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu at the helm—And this greatly tarnishes our Victory. LET BIBI GO, HE’S GOT A BIG JOB TO DO!
Then, Reutersrevealed Sunday that the Jerusalem District Court canceled this week's hearings for Netanyahu's trial, "accepting a request the Israeli leader made citing classified diplomatic and security grounds."
The news agency noted that "it was unclear whether a social media post by... Trump influenced the court's decision."
Meanwhile, Netanyahu's military kept slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza this weekend. In addition to the warrant for the prime minister issued last year by the International Criminal Court—which sparked retaliation from Trump—Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
Gaza health officials said that as of midday Sunday, Israeli attacks had killed at least 86 people in the previous 24 hours, and put the death toll since October 2023 at 56,500, with 133,419 others wounded.
With thousands more Palestinians missing in the destroyed enclave, researchers have warned that the true toll could be far higher, particularly when accounting for deaths from causes such as disease, hunger, and exposure to cold temperatures.
The Israeli military on Sunday issued evacuation orders for neighborhoods in Gaza City and other northern areas of the strip.
According to the BBC:
Medics said five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a tent housing displaced people in al-Mawasi near the southern city of Khan Younis—an area where people in the north had been told to evacuate to.
Five members of the Maarouf family, including three children, were killed.
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