RealPage Sues City of Berkeley to Stop Unconstitutional Ordinance Banning Lawful Speech

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Company will defend technology’s role in supporting efficient and affordable housing and seek an injunction against legislation adopted based on false claims concerning its revenue management software

RealPage^®, the leading global provider of AI-enabled software platforms to the real estate industry, announced that it has filed a lawsuit against the City of Berkeley, California (the “City”) for passing a sweeping and unconstitutional ordinance that bans lawful speech and was prompted by an intentional campaign of misinformation and often-repeated false claims about the company’s revenue management software.

RealPage is seeking a judgment and injunction against the City’s recently adopted ordinance that seeks to prohibit the use of math and publicly available information to provide advice or recommendations to its customers who own and manage rental housing properties. Specifically, the ordinance seeks to ban algorithms that use any “information” to advise or recommend market-appropriate rent prices for rental housing properties.

The Berkeley City Council passed the ordinance on March 25, 2025, following an increasingly common misinformation campaign espousing demonstrably false information to encourage the passage of laws that would do nothing to improve housing availability or affordability. Instead, these inaccuracies and flawed assumptions result in bad policy decisions such as this unconstitutional ordinance and threaten to disincentivize future development to address the housing shortage. RealPage’s revenue management software contributes to a healthier and more efficient rental housing ecosystem that benefits both renters and housing providers.

The unconstitutional ordinance, codified at Berkeley Municipal Code Chapter 13.63, is set to go into effect on April 24, 2025, unless enjoined by the court.

“RealPage is proud of the solutions we provide and the role our customers play in providing efficient and affordable housing in Berkeley and across the country,” said Dana Jones, RealPage CEO and President. “It’s disappointing the City of Berkeley has adopted legislation based on misinformation that will have a long-lasting and detrimental effect on housing in their community and will ultimately stifle innovation. Rather than pursue misguided ordinances, we encourage California’s public leaders to focus on the real issue – the lack of housing supply. Until then, we must take legal action to defend the critical role technology plays in supporting a healthier housing ecosystem.”

Setting the record straight

Below are the facts about RealPage’s revenue management software solutions:

RealPage customers:
- Decide their own rent prices,
- Always have 100% discretion to accept or reject software price recommendations,
- Are never punished for declining recommendations,
- Accept recommendations less than 50% of the time.
RealPage revenue management software makes price recommendations in all directions – up, down or no change – to align with property-specific objectives of the housing providers using the software.
RealPage revenue management software is not “price fixing software” or a “coordinated pricing algorithm.” It evaluates internal supply and demand data from the subject property along with publicly available rent data from other properties to generate personalized price recommendations that align with the customer’s unique asset strategy. Each property manager’s unique asset strategy is expressed in the software through over 100 customizable parameters that are set by the customer, resulting in many thousands of distinct configurations.
RealPage revenue management software has been available for two decades and is purposely built to be legally compliant.
RealPage software uses data responsibly, aids compliance with Fair Housing laws, rent control laws, and state of emergency price gouging laws, and does not use any personal or demographic data to generate rent price recommendations.

Others weigh in

David Bahnsen – author, one of the top financial advisors in America and host of National Review’s Radio Free California podcast – said on March 20:

“This idea that algorithms or digital technology or AI or whatever it is, is providing information, and that it’s unfairly distorting a market is insulting, it lacks a limiting principle, and it is not merely wrong, but the opposite of right.”
“By definition, all an algorithm can do is report on what people are doing. It can’t create what they are doing.”
“You can’t even comprehend how absurd it is that people think real money and big money are trading hands at irrational prices, because, well gosh darn it, that’s what the computer told us to do. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Will Swain, President, California Policy Center, wrote the following in an op-ed published in The Mercury News and East Bay Times on March 25:

“If Berkeley wants to bring down prices, it should just build more housing.”
“Berkeley’s City Council attempt to shut down algorithmic price recommendation is remindful of the ugly king who thought he became handsome because he banned mirrors. Housing won’t become affordable by banning algorithmic math either.”
“The real reason for high rents was explained in Econ 101: in the East Bay, housing supply has yet to catch up with housing demand.”
“There’s nothing requiring either the landlord or the renter or buyer to accept that price, that the prices are not set by an algorithm. They’re just reflected there. The price is set when two people meet, shake hands and make a deal to pay.”
“In short, to make housing more affordable, our local leaders should reduce the disincentives to new single and multifamily construction through reform of the city’s rent control, its overly restrictive tenant-rights policies and its glacial permitting process.”