The San Diego City Council voted 8-to-1 to ban software developed by RealPage, a Texas-based company, which has been accused of facilitating illegal rent increases by enabling landlords to share confidential pricing data. This decision aligns San Diego with other cities like Berkeley, San Francisco, and Minneapolis that have enacted similar bans. The Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit against RealPage claims the software fosters collusion among landlords, allowing them to manipulate rental prices. RealPage countered that it merely provides market analysis, not securing collusion among competitors.
RealPage takes the data of millions of apartments, from hundreds of landlords, to give a user advice on what to charge a tenant.
Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said, 'This software weaponizes private data, from what should be competing landlords, to figure out just how high they can push prices.'
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