RealPage goes from setting rent to collecting it

RealPage, the algorithmic rent-setting bundle company, has announced plans to get Livble, a work that lets radical wage their monthly rent successful installments.

Livble describes itself arsenic a “flexible” rent outgo solution. Renters tin divided payments into up to 4 installments passim the month. The work bills itself arsenic helping tenants “avoid precocious fees and recognition paper fees” arsenic good arsenic “build recognition done rent,” but it charges $30 to $40 per loan. RealPage didn’t disclose the presumption of the deal.

Under the deal, RealPage volition integrate Livble into its spot absorption bundle and volition grip “all collections.” Last year, the US Department of Justice and respective states sued RealPage implicit claims that it monopolized the marketplace for commercialized gross absorption bundle utilized to acceptable the terms of apartments. The suit alleges RealPage utilized nonpublic rental prices from competing landlords to pass its algorithm, which provides rental terms recommendations for spot owners.

George Slover, elder counsel for contention and argumentation astatine the Center for Democracy and Technology, calls RealPage’s latest acquisition a “bold move” fixed its existing antitrust battle. “I deliberation it’s going to person to beryllium reviewed by the Justice Department,” Slover told The Verge. “It’s truly a question of whether they’re buying a imaginable competitor.”

In May, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and others asked RealPage whether it had “potential involvement” successful Republicans’ now-scrapped AI moratorium. They argued that RealPage would’ve benefited from a 10-year prohibition preventing states from regulating algorithms, as respective section governments person already enacted laws regulating rent-setting software.

Update, July 18th: Added a connection from the CDT.