Rent monopoly crackdown continues as FBI raids corporate landlord for 18 Arizona properties
Rent monopoly crackdown continues as FBI raids corporate landlord for 18 Arizona properties
The federal investigation runs parallel to a price-fixing lawsuit by the Arizona Attorney General against 400 other apartment complexes in the state.
Federal agents raided a property management company operating in Arizona as part of an investigation into price-fixing rent, marking a distinct escalation in the renewed push to enforce consumer protection laws.
Cortland, an Atlanta-based property management company, joins nine other real estate conglomerates under investigation for creating a rental monopoly, resulting in rents across Arizona going up by more than 30% since 2022. The common thread between the 10 is RealPages, a co-defendant and consulting firm whose software they utilized to determine the maximum amount rent could be raised, then doing so in tandem in a manner Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has characterized as monopolistic.
“The conspiracy allegedly engaged in by RealPage and these landlords has harmed Arizonans and directly contributed to Arizona’s affordable housing crisis,” said Mayes. “This conspiracy stifled fair competition and essentially established a rental monopoly in our state’s two largest metro areas.”
Price collusion is still price collusion when an algorithm does the pricing for you. I hope they nail these fuckers to the wall with fines and breaking apart their companies.
I hope so as well, but am not optimistic.
If recent history has shown us anything, it's that this will just lock in the current rates. Of which the combined profits from, will be exponentially more then whatever legal costs and fines are ultimately paid.
Maybe a single pasty will get 36 months, with 24 suspended.
All of which will eventually be overturned on appeal to SCOTUS.
If this was to do with collusion against home owners, a significantly powerful voting block that is politically catered to, it'd be different.
But renters are viewed as livestock, the pay pigs for the elite, and only given enough illusions of justice or action to avoid bread riots.
I will provide the caveat that if this investigation dovetails into, or brings in, investigations into companies that also harm the interest of middle class homeowners, there might be some hope for it making a dent.
We can probably thank Lina Khan, chair of FTC for this. It's amazing to finally have someone back in the FTC that cares about protecting consumers.
I wonder who appointed her and then who voted to confirm her appointment.
"President Joe Biden elevated Amazon critic and anti-monopoly advocate Lina Khan to chair the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, hours after the Senate confirmed her by a 69-28 vote.
She was sworn in just as quickly, the FTC said that evening."
This is great, and I don't mean that in a "fuck landlords" way either. It was good to see the DoJ start anti-trust action against RealPage and it's great that it's continuing. The Government has a true role to fill as Referee in the Marketplace and they've been absent for far too long.
I mean it in a fuck landlords way, too, though.
They raised my rent 20% over two years and priced me out of two apartments. Glad to see progress.
REACH OUT TO YOUR REPRESENTATIVES
Hello,
It has recently been widely reported that the FBI raided a corporate landlord in Arizona due to their use of RealPage to engage in price-fixing. I have reason to believe that RealPage has been used by landlords in [state] as well, so I am curious to know if [state] renters that may have been victimized by landlords using RealPage will also be able to depend on our elected officials to step in and enforce the consumer protection laws that we need in order to fight back against the wildly predatory price increases we have been experiencing from so many different directions. Please tell me this is an issue where the real people of [state], and not the corporations that speak far too loudly with their dollars, have our representatives behind our backs.
When and if wrongdoing is found, can we also expect to be fairly and fully compensated for the greedflation that landlords stole? And if those costs are too high for a particular landlord to bear, perhaps ownership of the effected properties should instead be transferred to the government to establish more low-income housing facilities and in doing so, help address crises in housing, homeless, and skyrocketing costs. What if we start treating corporations with the same uncaring hand they treat consumers, instead of handling them with kid-gloves? Can [state] citizens count on your support in keeping our people, not our corporations, as your top priority?
Respectfully, [name]
sounds like carteling more than monopoly but maybe that's just a sub category
Every single industry has created one of these pricing consultancy companies where they pool their information, if they're really going after this, the American business community is nothing but low hanging fruit.
The Supreme Court will stop it of course, that's what they're paid for.
Now do them all
Would've never rented from them had I known this.
Fuckem.
Just roll the houses back to 2012, and make a price cap.
We should bring back impalement as a form of punishment, specifically corporate landlords all impaled in the town square, Vlad Dracula-style.
So instead of 1 Million dollar 2 bedroom condos in Phoenix they might be looking at 660k dollar condos?
Let me guess, you didn't read the article
Only up to the 30% part at which point I immediately ran to the comments to make this snarky satyrical comment.