Investigators searched the company’s offices as part of an investigation into alleged fixing of apartment prices in the multifamily housing industry.
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Landlord Cortland confirmed in a statement that the company’s Atlanta offices were raided by the FBI in May. Investigators searched the company’s offices as part of an investigation into alleged fixing of apartment prices in the multifamily housing industry.
The May 22 raid comes amid a Justice Department criminal investigation into real estate software company RealPage and some of the large apartment operators that use it to determine whether the Texas-based company helped fix prices.
Cortland said in a statement that the company and its employees were not “targets” of the investigation, which was first reported by Regulatory News Milex.
“We can confirm that the FBI executed a limited search warrant at our Atlanta offices as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s ongoing investigation into potential antitrust violations in the multifamily housing industry,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
“We are fully cooperating with the investigation and we understand that neither Cortland nor any of our employees are ‘targets’ of this investigation. Due to ongoing litigation, we are unable to comment further at this time.
The FBI separately confirmed the raid in a statement.
“All we can say is that FBI Atlanta agents conducted court-authorized activity at this address last month,” an FBI spokesperson told Inman.
Cortland builds and manages apartment complexes across the United States and had a portfolio worth nearly $21 billion as of September, according to its website.
The Justice Department upgraded its investigation into RealPage from a civil investigation to a criminal investigation in March, according to a report. Politico Report. Of particular interest to the government is RealPage’s Yardi software, which landlords can use to estimate supply and demand for their listings, helping them maximize their asking rents. The government is reportedly concerned that the software is being used by competing multifamily operators to exchange pricing information that they would not otherwise have access to.
The criminal investigation follows a civil investigation within the Justice Department’s antitrust division that follows a tenant class action lawsuit. As President Biden outlined in his recent State of the Union address, cracking down on antitrust violations has become a cornerstone of the Biden administration’s domestic agenda.
“For millions of renters, we are cracking down on big landlords who are violating antitrust laws by fixing prices and raising rents,” Biden said in a March 7 speech.
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