The Portland City Council has pushed back to committee a proposal to ban landlords from using rent-setting algorithms, according to reports.
The measure’s sponsor, Portland City Council member Angelita Morillo, asked that the proposed ban be moved back to committee because there is ongoing litigation involving the issue around the country with other states and cities.
According to govtech.com, Morillo’s statement was an apparent reference to real estate software company RealPage’s recent lawsuit against Berkeley, California, which has attempted to stop landlords from using its tools to set rents.
Texas-based RealPage said Berkeley’s ordinance, which goes into effect this month, violates the company’s free-speech rights and is the result of an “intentional campaign of misinformation and often-repeated false claims” about its products.
“It’s kind of with a heavy heart that I have to say this,” Morillo said while introducing her motion.
Subscribing to real-estate data services such as RealPage has become more and more common among landlords, but critics like Morillo argue the practice amounts to collusion that drives up rents for tenants because landlords effectively work in concert with one another.
A federal antitrust lawsuit filed last year accused RealPage of scheming to drive down competition among landlords. Oregon and several other states joined the civil lawsuit, which was updated in January to add six landlords.
Some municipalities have weighed or formalized measures to ban the use of rent setting algorithms locally, but RealPage fired back with its federal lawsuit against Berkeley in April.
A similar proposed ban in the Oregon Legislature died in the Senate Committee on Housing and Development. Senate Bill 722 got two public hearings and robust testimony but failed to advance before the cutoff date for lawmakers to vote it out of committee.