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Hello and welcome to The Ex excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor.

Today is Thursday October 24th, 2024 and this is a special episode of the excerpt. Across the country Americans are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of rent.

Rental prices have gone up roughly 35% during the last five years,

according to the real estate service firm Zillow.

Recently, the Justice Department and Attorneys General from eight states

filed a lawsuit against a software company that helps

landlords manage 16 million rental units nationwide. That company is

called Real Page. According to the lawsuit Real Page has shared data about rental properties that has led property owners to

collude rather than compete in the rental market.

Here to discuss real page and the antitrust lawsuit against them is Sandeep Ahesen,

legal director at the Open Markets Institute. Thanks for joining me, Sandeep.

Thanks for having we, Data.

How does the Realpage software work?

How does it determine rental prices?

So Realpage works with landlords across the country in most metropolitan areas, they collect unit specific data from landlords

so things like number of bedrooms, square footage, and of course the overall occupancy rate of the building.

They compile all this data and use it to figure out how landlords can collectively

maximize the revenues.

They build themselves as a revenue management service.

So they take all this data together and provide pricing recommendations to all their clients and as you said their clients

...