WASHINGTON – Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), a member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA),Ranking Member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee led a letter to Secretary of the Department of Defense (DoD), Pete Hegseth, calling for an investigation into whether landlords may be using property management software company RealPage’s services to price gouge military families.
RealPage is accused of contributed to excessive rental costs in several places where DoD raised housing allowances, including in Arizona by landlords in the Phoenix Metro area, home to Luke Air Force Base, and Tucson, home to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base.
See coverage below:
On the Airwaves:
Reporter: “An Arizona [senator] says landlords may be taking advantage of our soldiers. Ruben Gallego wants the U.S. Secretary of Defense to investigate corporate landlords across the country, including here in Tucson. He says there are long held concerns that landlords are raising rent to pocket increases in military housing allowances. He explains, as the military adjusts housing allowances for inflation, so do landlords supposedly adjust rent for those increased allowances. Gallego says they may be using software like RealPage to do it. Several landlords are already being sued by Arizona and the Justice Department for using RealPage to artificially inflate rent prices.”
In Print:
Arizona Republic: Ruben Gallego, other senators question if RealPage is gouging military members
[Catherine Reagor, 2/4/25]
Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and other Democratic U.S. senators are calling for an investigation into whether landlords are using RealPage property management services to price gouge military families with higher rents.
Fifteen members of the Senate sent a letter to Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying, “In addition to harming military families, unsustainable housing prices have negative implications for recruitment and retention of U.S. Armed Forces.”
Increasing housing costs have forced some families to delay moves and choose unsafe housing, according to the senators. […]
“Our military families already sacrifice so much to serve our nation, often having to relocate every few years,” said Gallego. “It is vital we ensure RealPage’s algorithm is not used to price gouge military families.”
The letter raises concerns that RealPage is using increases in the government’s Basic Housing Allowance, which helps military families own or rent homes, to “line the pockets of corporate landlords.”
Copper Courier: Is RealPage fleecing the military out of billions in housing costs? Sen. Gallego thinks so.
[Camaron Stevenson, 2/4/25]
A software company under state and federal investigation for allegedly working with massive property management companies to create illegal rental monopolies could soon face its biggest opponent yet: the United States military.
US Sens. Ruben Gallego, Elizabeth Warren, and 13 other Democratic senators sent a letter Tuesday to US Defense Department Secretary Pete Hegseth, asking for an investigation into RealPage for algorithmically raising rents based on tenants’ military status.
“Our military families already sacrifice so much to serve our nation, often having to relocate every few years,” Gallego said. “It is vital we ensure RealPage’s algorithm is not used to price gouge military families.” […]
Traditionally, landlords raise rents based on market conditions such as housing supply versus demand, property taxes, or inflation. What RealPage is accused of is developing software to determine the maximum tenants could afford to pay, then collaborating with landlords so they could raise rent in tandem, essentially creating a rent monopoly. In Arizona, where rents across the state increased by 30% in just two years, one in ten rental units is managed by a company that uses Realpage’s software.
In a scheme targeting military families, the price-gouging could become much more targeted. Service members’ salaries are public knowledge, as is the amount they receive in housing assistance, known as the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH). This information could be added to the algorithm’s decision-making process, allowing it to raise rents to the maximum each tenant receives in housing assistance—or even higher if they have a higher-earning military rank.
“The Basic Housing Allowance is meant to support military families – not line the pockets of corporate landlords,” said Gallego.
NBC: With military housing costs skyrocketing, Democratic senators request Pentagon action
[Gretchen Morgenson, 2/4/25]
Rising costs are especially hard on active-duty service members’ families, who receive an allowance from the Defense Department to cover the costs of owning or renting privately managed housing. Although the department has increased the allowances in recent years, they remain insufficient for most active-duty families, according to a new survey conducted by Blue Star Families, a nonprofit organization founded in 2009 by military spouses.
Only 26% of active-duty families responding to the survey said the allowance covered their monthly housing costs last year; just four years earlier, 42% had said it covered their costs. Seventy percent of active-duty service members and their families live off base, the organization said.
Concerned about the price hikes, 15 Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee, led by ranking member Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, want the Defense Department to investigate what’s driving them.
In a letter Monday, the lawmakers asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to determine whether higher costs faced by service members’ families are a result of what they call profiteering by landlords using the rent-pricing system offered by RealPage Inc., a private equity-backed property management software company. […]
Another problem: As out-of-pocket housing costs increase, active-duty families are less likely to recommend military service to others, Blue Star Families’ research shows.
The Hill: Senate Dems ask Hegseth to probe potential price gouging on military families’ housing
[Sarah Fortinsky, 2/4/25]
Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are asking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to probe what’s driving the price hikes in rent and housing costs for military families.
Specifically, 15 Democrats — led by the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) — wrote a letter on Monday asking the Department of Defense (DOD) to investigate whether the high prices are a result of companies and landlords using RealPage’s rent-pricing system.
RealPage, a property management software company, is facing legal action from the Justice Department and 10 state attorneys general, who argue its rent-pricing system allows landlords to align their rents with each other to stifle competition and increase their own revenue, thereby hurting tenants. […]
The lawmakers expressed concern, too, that the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) — which the DOD provides service members to help with housing costs — is not keeping up with the costs of rent.
The Senate Democrats asked DOD to probe, too, reports that landlords are raising rents to profit off BAH increases rather than because of market conditions, citing a study saying this practice is “common.”
[2/5/25]
Fifteen senators are calling on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to launch a probe into whether landlords are leveraging real estate software company RealPage “to price gouge military families,” as they wrote in a recent letter.
Released by Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., on Tuesday, the letter follows a Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit that alleged the company’s pricing algorithm is aligning rents set by competing landlords, which the government argued amounts to illegal collusion that ultimately boosts renters’ costs.
Co-leading the request is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee.
“The Department of Defense has a responsibility to protect military families from predatory private housing companies and ensure that taxpayer dollars meant for military families are not being pocketed by unscrupulous landlords,” they wrote.