On August 19, 2024, Triangle DSA was made aware of an allegation that the report "The Landlord Cartel: RealPage and Why Your Rent is Going Up" published by the chapter contained inaccuracies. In response to these allegations, Triangle DSA initiated a review of the report, its methodology, and its publication process. This review concluded that, despite the report being produced with good intentions, there were significant methodological errors that compromised the report's integrity and conclusions. Specifically, it was alleged that the data source used to identify RealPage customers, a web page titled "RealPage, Inc Asset Snapshot", contained a clause stating that "RealPage Explore provides publicly available property specific information without regard to whether the properties are RealPage customers."

It was also alleged that the report incorrectly interpreted data retrieved from the American Community Survey, which would have impacted the accuracy of inflation adjustment calculations. Our review found that the disclaimer clause about RealPage Explore was not always present on the page. Accessible snapshots of the page taken by the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine indicate that the clause was added some time between March 6, 2023 and June 7, 2024. We verified that the June date was after the data was retrieved from RealPage, but before the article's publication.

Our review also identified that this page, without the mentioned clause, was featured in a separate report by More Perfect Union, which was published on April 18, 2024. After the More Perfect Union report was published, a subsequent correction was issued stating that "After publication of this video, RealPage added a disclaimer to the website that said it "provides publicly available property-specific information without regard to whether the properties are RealPage customers." This would further narrow the date down to between April 18, 2024, and June 7, 2024, a range that is inclusive of when our data was gathered. However, Triangle DSA was unable to definitively verify when this clause was added to the page, which raises legitimate concerns that the data used may not solely reflect RealPage customers.

Our review also found that an allegation that American Community Survey data was improperly used was substantiated. Specifically, our review found that inflation calculations used in the report assumed the ACS 2022 data was reporting 1-year averages in rent, while in actuality, it represented 5-year averages. Furthermore, the review identified that, for unknown reasons, this report was produced and approved outside the established editorial processes of Left Angles, our chapter's official blog, and as a result, was improperly published as a chapter statement without appropriate editorial oversight and fact-checking that could have caught and corrected the above mentioned errors.

Given these substantial issues, Triangle DSA has decided to retract the report "The Landlord Cartel: RealPage and Why Your Rent is Going Up." We have also notified INDY Week, which published secondary reporting based on this report, of the retraction. Triangle DSA remains committed to political struggle by and for the working class, with factual integrity in its statements and reporting. As part of this commitment, we will be conducting an additional review of our editorial practices, inclusive of Left Angles and all statements by the Chapter, to prevent oversights and ensure that future chapter statements and blog posts reflect our standards of accuracy and reliability.