Last month, a number of news outlets reported that the Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation of Texas-based real estate software provider RealPage, alleging that the company’s popular price-setting algorithm facilitated illegal price-fixing among some of the nation’s largest property management companies.

This news comes on the heels of a massive civil antitrust lawsuit, which the DOJ joined in the fall of 2023. 

The DOJ is claiming that RealPage’s Lease Rent Options (LRO) tool, is a hub-and-spoke conspiracy: a way for companies to illegally set prices without directly communicating with each other. Since the algorithm relies on private data submitted by its users, it can recommend prices at a level higher than the free market might allow — without the companies themselves directly sharing privileged information. 

Price-setting laws were written in a world before algorithms could make sophisticated suggestions based on complex and variable data. By outsourcing many decisions — in some cases, property revenue managers followed the algorithm’s suggestions 90% of the time — property management companies can claim that all they are doing is following the data.

The government’s case brings up a worthy question:

Is it a conspiracy if the main actors never directly communicate? Can a cartel be facilitated through an algorithm?

Worthy questions, which the resolution of the case will likely help determine for years to come.

But in the meantime, the more relevant question for many property management companies—and their legal counsel—is:

Is your data private or public? 

In a shifting landscape, many companies have decided to take no risks. Sharing private data with a third party could open a property management company to legal jeopardy. Property management companies have stopped sharing data with their competitors all together. And why risk it, if there is another tool that offers similarly excellent results?

ApartmentIQ is that tool. Developed by the data team at Rentable, one of the country’s most comprehensive apartment listing services, ApartmentIQ competitive data, meticulous analysis of current trends in thousands of markets, detailed evaluation of concessions — with one key difference:

It uses 100% public data.

That means no stress. That means not having to give private data to a third party. That means no worrying about whether you are actually part of a criminal conspiracy.

Every day, ApartmentIQ scrapes 99% of national properties, updating a vast, accurate and data-rich compilation of the state of rent in nearly every major metropolitan area in the U.S. Unit level rent rates, net effective rents, and even concessions are updated daily, producing the most accurate, complete, and unambiguously legal picture of today’s rental landscape. ApartmentIQ allows multifamily operators and revenue managers to understand their competition at a glance, setting rents (or changing them) quickly, within a dynamic and fluctuating environment.

No algorithm. No recommendations. Just data: intuitively organized, thoughtfully arranged, and 100% public.

That’s more than a safe bet — it’s a smart one.