> It would be different if the software made you promise (by contract, for example) to not go below a certain price.

From the reporting of this over the past 2 years, it became very clear they required them to accept the prices.

> Specifically, every morning, RealPage provides participating Lessors with recommended price levels. ... If Lessors wish to diverge from the “approved pricing” they must submit reasoning for doing so and await approval. ... But RealPage emphasizes the need for discipline among participating Lessors and urges them that for its coordinated algorithmic pricing to be the most successful in increasing rents, participating Lessors must adopt RealPage’s pricing at least 80% of the time.

https://cohost.org/morayati/post/925436-i-saw-real-page-s-cr...

It doesn't just look at competitor prices, it accepts internal and private financial data for numerous property (managers). Then it instructs the most profitable rates for each of them as a whole.

This is just collusion/price fixing through an indepedent 3rd party, not competition.

Or, perhaps it is put better by a RealPage exec: "there is greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down"

"But as we allege, these are more than just recommendations. RealPage actively polices landlords’ compliance with those recommendations. It also monitors landlords’ other policies by, for example, trying to stop concessions that landlords use to attract or retain renters."

Directly from the DOJ press release.

It's a bit more than just looking at pricing, landlords have to actively keep their own pricing updated with RealPage. You can reject the suggested pricing but to do so requires meeting with their representatives who try to persuade you to use it because, and I quote, “There is greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down.” That's self admittance to artificially reducing competition.

Isn't that precisely what they were doing? Forcing landlords to follow the recommended prices?

"RealPage thus makes it hard for customers to override its recommendations, according to the lawsuits, allegedly even requiring a written justification and explicit approval from RealPage staff." From: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/ai-price-a...

Legally it depends (I am not a lawyer)

The DOJ is likely to pursue this as collusion[1] which had legal precedent.

In this case: both parties intentional gathered to review prices together (through use of a third party).

Some bits from the article RealPage allowed landlords to "share confidential data" and "to suggest rents and term".

I don't know to what degree suggestions were made. If they were consistently suggesting increases: It's may be less similar to "looking at your competitor" and more "competitors agreeing to continuously notify each other of a price increase"

If it's also sharing occupancy statistics notification of an inelastic market could also be a contributing factor.

[1]: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/assistant-attorney-general-jo...

> It's my understanding that this software does that.

Well, sort of. Except your competitor uses the same software, so it calculates prices for both of you. Meaning you don’t have to collude with your competitor, you both outsource the collusion to a third party who takes a cut from the increased revenue you both see.

For more background look up “price signaling”, which was a lower tech way for competitors to mutually raise prices without direct communication. It has also been found to be illegal.

You really should read the court document.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25060739-us_et_al_v_...

>135. RealPage acknowledges that revenue protection “may seem counterintuitive to leasing needs.” In June 2023, a landlord complained to RealPage that “something in your model is broken” because “the pricing model is not lowering rents dramatically” despite the client’s high exposure during a busy summer leasing season. RealPage explained that, with revenue protection, “the model still sees the way to make more revenue is to lease fewer units at higher prices.” In other words, the model seeks to “raise rates to get the highest dollar value possible for the leases we can statistically achieve” and ignore those leases that the client wants but the model predicts, using competitors’ data, the client will not get

Just many many anti market functions