New Jersey renters are paying more for apartments than ever before, and lawmakers are blaming an unlikely culprit: landlord collusion software.
.An Assembly committee advanced legislation designed to crack down on property management platforms that allegedly coordinate rental prices across multiple landlords—driving up costs for renters statewide.
The Problem and How Algorithms Worsen It
The numbers are eye-popping.
Median rent for a three-bedroom apartment in New Jersey jumped 35% between 2021 and 2024. In urban areas like Hoboken, studios skyrocketed 61% in the same period. More than half of renters in the state are now considered “rent burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent alone.
Legislators sponsoring Assembly Bill A3497 and Senate Bill S2624 say property management software platforms that collect nonpublic rental data from multiple landlords, run it through an algorithm, and then recommend price increases based on the findings are primarily to blame.
How Landlord Collusion Software Works
Landlords feed real-time lease information and pricing data into third-party software. The platform’s algorithms process this nonpublic information and recommend rental prices, lease terms, and occupancy levels back to landlords. The results are decreased competition and increased rents.
One popular property management software boasted on its website that its platform enables landlords to “outperform the market” by 2 to 5%. A company executive went further, suggesting the software could be responsible for rent increases up to 14.5%.
Governor Sherrill called out this practice in her first budget address, referring to it as “for-profit surveillance by big tech.”
At its core, it’s a predatory business. But for renters who need a place to live, there’s little they can do alone.
The Solution
The bills introduced in the Legislature and Senate make it illegal for landlords to use collaborative software that facilitates price-fixing agreements. They also prohibit the software companies themselves from performing related functions, including collecting data, analyzing it through algorithms, and recommending new prices based on it.
The legislation would treat any violations as antitrust violations enforceable under New Jersey’s existing antitrust law. Both bills require the Department of Law and Public Safety and the Department of Community Affairs to develop publicly available education campaigns that inform renters of their rights.
The Debate: Renters Vs. the Real Estate Giants
Proponents argue the bills are necessary to stopping artificial rent increases driven by algorithms rather than genuine market conditions. An issue that they say has exacerbated New Jersey rent increases. Supporters frame it as consumer protection—preventing landlords from using data analytics to collude without direct communication.
Critics—primarily within the real estate industry—contend the bills are too broad and could inadvertently restrict legitimate business practices like benchmarking or market research. They argue that property owners have a right to use available data to inform pricing decisions.
The Assembly bill has been referred to the Appropriations Committee for further review. Both measures face significant lobbying pressure as they make their way through the chamber.
For New Jersey renters already squeezed by soaring housing costs, the introduced bills represent a a form of potential relief. For landlords and tech companies, they represent an existential threat to business models built on algorithmic price optimization.
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.