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RealPage is one of the great unrecognized villains of the modern age.

Fun story, a few years back I caught my landlord overbilling me on utilities. I said hey I did the math and you owe me back $X and I'm not paying any more utilities until that amount I'd been overpaying has been used up. My landlord used Realpage for billing, and Realpage said no that's not how it works, we'll get it corrected but you need to keep paying what's in the system or you'll be delinquent. I said go fuck yourself, I have no reason to trust that you and the landlord will adjust it accurately if I give you more money, I'm not obligated to wait until your system figures it out, your system is your problem, not mine. I plan to pay amounts I actually owe and not amounts I don't. They said you really have to. I said hey check it out I think I don't, let's see which one of us is right.

We went back and forth about it for quite some time, including me telling my bank not to accept withdrawals from RealPage (since they started charging me even with emails expressly explaining that they were not authorized to), which made them even more irritated at me and charging me extra fees. I said dude I am more than happy to explain this all to a judge if you want to go that route. They said you really have to pay though, we've worked out the overbill and corrected it but you still have late and returned-payment fees. I said we went over this, go fuck yourself, did I stutter.

When I moved out my landlord tried to not give me back my security deposit until RealPage was happy with my utilities balance. I waited 31 days and then sent them a formal notice that if they didn't return my security deposit I was within my rights to take them to court and get paid triple and planned to do so in 7 days. They said it had all been a big misunderstanding and was there really a need for all this and gave me back my security deposit.

Just talking about it now again makes me amped-up and irritated.

All corporate landlords need to be dissolved. It shouldn't exist. People should not be able to make profit off of housing ever.

Haha I'm in this picture!

One was small claims court. They kept my security, tried to charge me a exit fee and demanded I pay more for cleanup. Then a late fee for refusing to pay! The idiots sent a manager over to small claims to defend it, who was literally out of her element. The judge kept going, "Where in the lease does it say that?" And this dummy manager didn't know anything, forcing the court to give me my security deposit and drop the fees.

The other was threatening small claims court for an $2k because they ignored my email of my exit date, and tried to charge me a extra month. They immediately "found all my paperwork" all of a sudden and dropped it.

These fuckers are absolutely nickeling and diming people. And more people should be ready to flood the courts with their bullshit.

We need a national renters bill of rights! Rent control is badly needed because no one can afford to live anymore. If America becomes a nation of renters our economy will collapse.

Just looked at that company's website. Gotta love the frigid mentality that causes them to refer to people's home and shelter as a "business" and talk about "minimizing costs" like it is making fucking dog collars.

If anyone knows how to get in touch with Anonymous, please suggest that they obliterate this dystopian nightmare from the face of the internet.

Well, if this isn’t a classic case of “he said, she said.”

From the article:

“Rather than making independent decisions on what the market here in D.C. calls for in terms of filling vacant units, landlords are compelled, under the terms of their agreement with RealPage, to charge what RealPage tells them,” said [Attorney General of the District of Columbia Brian Schwalb].

Also:

RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions.

So, which one is it?

Regardless, these are some very interesting cases revolving around the Sherman Act as it applies to housing markets.

EDIT: Here’s the video version of the article.

Why isnt ratethelandlord.org more popular?

This is essentially the same way that my employer sets pay ranges.

They send a list of job titles and descriptions to an outside company along with the number of employees and how much each of those employees are paid. Lots of other employers send their info and the outside company tries to match up all the job descriptions and then sends back to all of the employers what the "market range" is for every job.

My employer then decides where in that range they think is "competitive" (hint: its near the bottom). That's the amount HR and Finance are willing to approve when hiring someone into a role, regardless of experience. The wages are only "competitive" if every other employer goes along with the scheme and offers the same amount.

This is heartening in some ways, at least it's good news for certain people in that area of the U.S. Here in Utah, tenants have NO rights, and they are told that whenever they sign a lease. There are no options for tenants to retalitate against anything a landlord decides to do.

Of course, almost 100% of our "esteemed" legislatures here are landlords, so they are the one who pass the laws. And in Utah, a landlord is allowed to enter your premises and abscond with any item of furniture or equipment they so desire (if they want your stereo, it's theirs) and there is nothing a tenant can do. Tenants aren't even allowed by law to contact a landlord's place of business, under penalty of fines and jail sentences.

Our legislatures are strengthening landlord laws this session, so things will only get worse and worse for renters here.

Good for the renters. Hopefully they can win.

Man this seems like a great target for Anonymous to permanently cripple... 🙏🏼

I work in this industry at a decent level with these companies. They regularly try to worm out of contracts, get mixed up in unethical shit, and do things like this. We are literally one step removed from organized crime a lot of the time.

I'm not convinced state housing is the solution, but extensive regulatory oversight is badly needed.

Get Yardi too. Same crap wrapped up in a more terrible software package.

“the software takes empathy out of the equation”

I can’t wait to see how even more callous the software can get when they add “A.I.” to it. Maybe they’ll just cut out the rental office people altogether and all customer service will be with a glorified chat bot.

I have no idea how people can afford to rent. In my general 5 square mile area, there are literally dozens of new apartment complexes, townhomes, and housing developments that are built strictly to rent, and the rent for all of these places range from $1500 for a 2 bedroom apartment to $3000 per month for the townhomes and rental houses. I just don't understand the system where these people somehow cannot afford to buy a home but are expected to pay more than a mortgage in rent.