Registry proposal draws sharp opposition from registrars, realtors and landlords; sponsor says data needed to study rent trends

Representative Ellen Reed introduced HB 558, a bill that would require landlords to record annual rental information county-by-county and sign an affidavit that they do not use pricing algorithms to set rents. Reed said the purpose is to create reliable, landlord‑level data so policymakers can study whether rents are being artificially coordinated or fixed: “What this bill would do would be to ask the register of deeds for each county to create a, method, which I imagine most of them would create an online portal…by which they intake information from every landlord who's renting a property in the county,” Reed told the committee.

Registers of deeds objected to housing the registry in their offices. Catherine Barabee, president of the New Hampshire Registry of Deeds Association, told the committee the association “does not agree that the landlord registry...be housed and administered by the Registry of Deeds offices” and cited technology, staffing and statutory limits under RSA 478 and existing indexing workloads. Registrars said they were not aware of similar county‑level registry models being hosted in deeds offices nationally and warned of large transactional volumes and unclear fee authority.

Industry witnesses — including Matt Bacon of the New Hampshire Association of Realtors and several small landlords — argued that a public landlord registry could raise rents, produce misleading comparisons, and threaten tenant privacy. Bacon told the committee a public registry “will oversimplify rents” and could prompt upward pressure on market rates; property managers and landlords raised concerns about the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the potential that publicized unit‑level rent and address information could be used to infer individual tenant finances or expose personally identifying information.

The sponsor and supporters said they seek only data to study whether coordinated pricing or algorithmic tools (witnesses referred to RealPage in national litigation) are contributing to rising rents. Reed said the required affidavit — that landlords do not “use software to determine a rent” — addresses algorithmic pricing and the risk that automated revenue‑management tools may coordinate rents. Critics argued algorithm language is vague and would catch routine software and business tools (spreadsheets, accounting software) used by small owners.

Committee members questioned operational costs, enforcement, and alternatives: registrars suggested local town offices or existing HUD/state sources for rent data; New Hampshire Housing collects and analyzes rental market data and was cited as a current source, though the sponsor argued county‑level landlord reporting would provide a different, landlord‑level view. The committee did not vote on HB 558 at the hearing; sponsors and opponents recommended further drafting on scope, who administers the registry, fee structures, privacy protections and narrow definitions of “algorithm.”