Greystar, for example, is one of the largest apartment owners in the United States, managing luxury apartment buildings on Revere Beach and in Boston’s Seaport that command some of the highest rents in the state. Avalon Bay, another national firm that received a letter Wednesday, owns 35 residential properties in Massachusetts.
The letters, signed by Warren, Markey and Moulton, request information from the companies about their use of the RealPage software and whether it has been used to inflate rents in Massachusetts.
“Massachusetts is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis, with rents in the Commonwealth currently among the highest in the country,” the letters read. “Amid this crisis, we are extremely concerned that corporate landlords are taking advantage of Massachusetts tenants by defrauding them through illegal price-fixing schemes.”
The other companies that own apartments in Massachusetts and received letters on Wednesday are Bozzuto Group, Equity Residential, UDR, Bell Partners, AIR Communities, Related Companies, Gables Residential, Cushman and Wakefield, Brookfield Properties, Lincoln Property and WinnResidential, the property management arm of Massachusetts-based WinnCompanies.
A spokesman for Winn, one of the state’s largest manufacturers and owners of subsidized housing, said earlier this month that Winn no longer uses the software. He also dismissed claims in a class-action lawsuit filed by a group of tenants against RealPage and companies that allegedly used the software.
“It’s important to remember that … 90 percent of the apartments WinnResidential manages are income- or rent-restricted, meaning rents are set based on household income and thresholds set annually by the government.”
RealPage has defended its software as legal, and all apartment owners named in lawsuits over the software have disputed the allegations of price inflation. In a statement on its website, RealPage called the DOJ and class action lawsuits false, saying its customers are free to set their own rents and that its software does not inflate rents.
Warren and other lawmakers have been scrutinizing RealPage since the publication of a 2022 ProPublica investigation that exposed the software’s use. They have said the algorithm has been used to set prices for more than 4 million units nationwide and relies on information from more than 13 million units. By aggregating price information from competing landlords, the algorithm determines the maximum rents the market can tolerate, and ProPublica reported that RealPage executives have bragged that the software has caused double-digit price increases in some rental markets.
“RealPage’s software maximizes price increases, minimizes price decreases, and maximizes landlords’ pricing power,” the Justice Department said in a press release earlier this month.
Warren, who has long criticized commercial landlords for harming ordinary tenants, said Wednesday that tackling tactics that drive up rents is essential to solving the broader housing crisis.
“In the housing crisis, people are being hit in every way,” Warren said. “There’s not enough supply. Private equity is buying up properties left and right. And the corporate landlords are plundering tenants. All of these problems are compounding each other and leaving families in Massachusetts on the losing end.”
Andrew Brinker can be reached at andrew.brinker@globe.com. Follow him @andrewnbrinker.