WASHINGTON — A lawyer for RealPage, a company the Justice Department sued for allegedly helping landlords keep rents high, argued Monday the company doesn’t hurt competition and that quotes from executives in the lawsuit were “cherry-picked” and taken out of context.
The response was to the department and eight state attorneys general filing a lawsuit Friday in federal court in North Carolina accusing RealPage of helping landlords share non-public information about rents, vacancies and concessions aimed at keeping rents higher.
But Stephen Weissman, an outside lawyer for RealPage, argued the information sharing is legal because the company aggregates rental data from numerous sources rather than showing specific rates at rival properties.
