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.
honestly, if recent history was anything to go on this investigation would have never started or immediately ended, agreeing they did nothing wrong.
you might have a point about supreme Court meddling, but this all feels new to me.
It’s only new-feeling cause it’s been 20-some years since we’ve had a democratic control of most parts of the government.
It’s pretty neat, right?
You’re referring to settlements where the accused pays a fine and maybe agrees to certain conditions, but is allowed to do so without admitting to any wrongdoing.
That part comes after the investigation concludes…which is exactly what I’m talking about.
Way too much cynicism. The current SCOTUS isn’t nearly as beholden to big money interests as many people love to pretend they are. Their recent upholding of funding for the CPB is a prime example of this.
…SCOTUS has been expanding corporate power since long before the current majority. This is a nearly 40 year long project and it transcends any nominal association of a justice as being liberal or conservative.
There’s no doubt that it has been accelerated as of late, but don’t kid yourself about who they serve
Also, that CFPB case would have wrecked the status quo of power and how government funding works. Not a subtle shift, or a quick jolt, but a fucking wrecking ball by making it so that programs that makeup nearly 2/3rds of the federal budget would have to be continually reauthorized e.g. Medicare, Social Security, etc.