Canadian tenants are pushing for greater scrutiny of an American property management software company that faces a U.S. federal government price-fixing investigation while it continues to be used by landlords in this country.
RealPage software, Toronto resident Cynthia Black recalled her property management company had mentioned YieldStar during an April, 2023 negotiation between her tenants association and the building’s ownership. A 2023 ruling in a Tennessee lawsuit found “the most persuasive evidence of a scheme to fix prices is the fact that clients provided RealPage with their proprietary commercial data knowing that RealPage would require the same from their competitors and use all of that data to recommend rental prices,” according to legal analysis by U.S. firm Morris, Manning & Martin.
“So far we have not heard any indications from either the federal government or the provincial government even flagging this as a potential issue or concern for them,” said Dania Majid, a staff lawyer and director of the tenant duty counsel program at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants – Ontario . “This software allows these financialized landlords to collude with one another so there is no competition.
GWLRA refused to agree to collectively negotiate building-wide rental increases with the association, and Ms. Black said in the last year some tenants have received rental increases as high as 17 per cent.GWLRA provides a breakdown of its net operating income per location in its annual reports, and according to