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Just After Settling With Trump DOJ, RealPage Sues New York Over Ban on Algorithmic Rent-Setting
"As if we need any more evidence the settlement is BS," wrote one antitrust advocate.
Nov 26, 2025
After securing a corporate-friendly settlement with the Trump Justice Department earlier this week, the real estate software company RealPage on Wednesday turned its attention to the state of New York, suing to block a recently enacted law aimed at preventing algorithmic rent-setting that has helped drive up housing costs nationwide.
The law in question prohibits software companies like RealPage, which is owned by a private equity firm, from enabling landlords to collude and push up rents. Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the measure into law last month, making the state one of the first in the nation to combat algorithmic price-fixing.
In a legal challenge filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, RealPage argues the state law is "a sweeping and unconstitutional ban on lawful speech specifically intended" to outlaw RealPage's software.
On the third page of the lawsuit, RealPage cites its pending settlement with the US Justice Department in an effort to bolster its case against New York's law, which advocates hailed as a major victory for renters.
"Especially because RealPage offers [revenue management software (RMS)] that does not reference any competitor’s non-public information when a customer is using the software, there is no plausible basis to conclude that RealPage’s RMS can be used to facilitate any form of collusion among RealPage customers," the lawsuit states. "In fact, this version of the software is specifically permitted by the U.S. Department of Justice under its proposed antitrust consent decree with RealPage."
"As if we need any more evidence the settlement is BS," replied Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project.
With sky-high housing costs a central focus in New York—particularly the successful New York City mayoral campaign of Zohran Mamdani—and across the country, RealPage and management companies that use its software have drawn heightened scrutiny. Last week, nine states reached a $7 million settlement with Greystar, the largest landlord in the US, in a lawsuit over the company's use of RealPage software to raise rents.
As part of the state settlement, Greystar agreed to no longer use rent-setting software that relies on private data from other landlords.
Late last year, during the presidency of Joe Biden, the Justice Department sued RealPage over the company's alleged "unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing."
“RealPage contracts with competing landlords who agree to share with RealPage nonpublic, competitively sensitive information about their apartment rental rates and other lease terms to train and run RealPage’s algorithmic pricing software,” said the Biden DOJ. “This software then generates recommendations, including on apartment rental pricing and other terms, for participating landlords based on their and their rivals’ competitively sensitive information.”
On Monday, the Trump Justice Department announced a proposed settlement with RealPage that the company openly welcomed, characterizing the deal as an effective endorsement of the legality of its product. The settlement, in which RealPage does not admit to any wrongdoing, still must be reviewed and approved by a court.
According to a report published last year by the Biden White House, algorithmic price-setting cost renters across the US nearly $4 billion in 2023 alone.
The American Prospect's David Dayen noted Wednesday that RealPage previously "promised landlord clients that it would generate 'revenue lift between 3% to 7%' by feeding rental data in a metro area into an algorithm that recommended price increases."
"Then, RealPage agents would tell landlords that they risked losing access to the platform if they didn’t comply with hiking rents," Dayen wrote. "This was a case of classic price-fixing."
"Not having to pay a nickel or admit wrongdoing is lenient enough," Dayen added, referring to the DOJ settlement. "But there are several loopholes even in the restrictions. RealPage can continue using past data to train AI models, which will inform future price recommendations. Public data can be aggregated and used for this purpose. And RealPage can continue using an 'auto-accept' feature for price recommendations, as long as clients can reconfigure it to opt out. We know from most of digital age history that opt-outs don’t work well."
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'Terrible for Renters': Trump DOJ Settles Price-Fixing Case With RealPage
"Far from stopping illegal practices," said one critic, "it gives a green light to algorithmic price-fixing across the economy."
Nov 25, 2025
The Trump Justice Department on Monday announced a settlement with the real estate software giant RealPage, which the federal government and multiple states accused of illegally facilitating collusion between landlords to drive up rents.
The settlement, which must be reviewed by a court, would require RealPage to "cease having its software use competitors’ nonpublic, competitively sensitive information to determine rental prices," among other mandates.
Abigail Slater, head of the DOJ's Antitrust Division, cast the agreement as a win for competition and for renters. But RealPage downplayed the settlement's impact on its business model, saying the deal's terms "bless the legality of RealPage’s prior and planned product changes"—alluding to the company's voluntary decision last year to let its customers remove nonpublic data when using the software to calculate recommended rents.
The company emphasized that the settlement does not include any financial penalties or admissions of guilt.
"What a total farce," Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, said in response to the DOJ announcement. "This sham settlement violates the first thing we tell every lawmaker: Fixing prices based on public data sets is still price fixing!"
"This is lipstick on a pig and terrible for renters," Hepner added.
The Justice Department initially sued RealPage last year under the Biden administration, accusing the company of running an "unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing and to monopolize the market for commercial revenue management software that landlords use to price apartments."
"RealPage contracts with competing landlords who agree to share with RealPage nonpublic, competitively sensitive information about their apartment rental rates and other lease terms to train and run RealPage’s algorithmic pricing software," the Biden DOJ said. "This software then generates recommendations, including on apartment rental pricing and other terms, for participating landlords based on their and their rivals’ competitively sensitive information."
The DOJ complaint used RealPage's own words against it, citing the company's description of its products as "driving every possible opportunity to increase price."
A White House report released late last year estimated that the kind of algorithmic pricing that RealPage enables cost renters across the US a total of nearly $4 billion in 2023 alone. The report characterized that estimate as conservative.
Basel Musharbash, managing attorney at Antimonopoly Counsel, warned following Monday's settlement announcement that "far from stopping illegal practices, it gives a green light to algorithmic price-fixing across the economy."
The states that joined the DOJ lawsuit were not listed on the settlement.
Last week, California, North Carolina, and other states announced a separate settlement with the apartment management giant Greystar, one of the companies that used RealPage software to set rents.
Under the state deal, Greystar agreed to pay $7 million in penalties and stop using RealPage’s software or similar products for pricing.
"Whether it's through smoke-filled backroom deals or through an algorithm on your computer screen, colluding to drive up prices is illegal,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. “Families across the country are staring down an affordability crisis. Companies that intentionally fuel this unaffordability by raising prices to line their own pockets can be sure I will use the full force of my office to hold them accountable."
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A Win for Mamdani Is a Win for Renters Everywhere
Mamdani is the antidote to the corporate landlord dominance we see in cities across the US. He doesn’t just speak on behalf of rent-stabilized tenants; he is one.
Nov 12, 2025
Zohran Mamdani, a tenant who lives in a rent-stabilized apartment and made affordable rent the primary issue in his campaign, has been elected mayor of New York City.
To be clear, a win for Mamdani is a huge win for renters—not just in New York, but across the country. Mayor-elect Mamdani has shown that a populist mayoral candidate with a bullhorn can ground a winning campaign in issues that impact constituents just trying to get by and have a decent place to live.
During the campaign, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo repeatedly attacked Mamdani for living in a rent-stabilized apartment and supporting a rent freeze. It was a display of character and courage that Mamdani never backed down. Instead, he doubled down. And the attacks against him continued through the last mayoral debate, where Mamdani stated emphatically, “You’ve heard it from Andrew Cuomo that the number one crisis in this city, the housing crisis, the answer is to evict my wife and I. He thinks you address this crisis by unleashing my landlord’s ability to raise my rent. If you think that the problem in this city is that my rent is too low, vote for him. If you know the problem in this city is that your rent is too high, vote for me.”
Mamdani understands the debate comes down to a very basic question: With rents so high, where are people supposed to live? The Starbucks barista, McDonald's worker, and Lyft driver are experiencing what most candidates are afraid to talk about—that they are one rent increase away from losing their apartment.
With over 2.3 million renters in New York City, it’s about time they elected a mayor who would put affordable rents front and center.
Too often, the dialogue around rent has been dominated by investors and corporate landlords. They seemingly have a bottomless pit of money to get their message out and line the campaign coffers of candidates who offer them carte blanche to raise rents and undermine tenants. As Mamdani stated during the race, “The same landlords who said they didn’t have enough money to freeze the rent, gave Cuomo $2.5 million dollars, the single largest check in this entire race.”
Mamdani is the antidote to the corporate landlord dominance we see in cities across the US. He doesn’t just speak on behalf of rent-stabilized tenants; he is one. And that makes all the difference.
Rent control is not new. It has been around since 1919. As real estate became more corporatized, multi-family buildings became a commodity—a line on a balance sheet. It’s less about the people and more about the building as an asset whose value is based on rents. In the 1990s, Apartment Associations led a nationwide campaign to curtail or ban altogether rent control. Currently, 37 states have banned it and states like California only allow rent control in buildings built in 1996.
Cash-strapped tenant organizations have done their best to move the needle on rent stabilization efforts, but they often face a deluge of money from the real estate industry, expensive lawsuits, and elected officials willing to reverse their progress.
Mamdani’s win as mayor signals new hope for campaigns that address the need to control skyrocketing rents. It sets in motion a new model nationwide centered on the needs of constituents, rather than corporate-dominated policies that have no tangible benefit to constituents and fail to improve the quality of life for low-income people.
With over 2.3 million renters in New York City, it’s about time they elected a mayor who would put affordable rents front and center.
Leaders across the country are watching what is happening in New York. The rents are so high that even someone working two full-time jobs can still be rent-burdened, paying over 30% of their income in rent. That is not sustainable.
New Yorkers reached a tipping point and found in Mamdani a leader who provided a platform of solutions, not more excuses for why they cannot get the relief they need. And hopefully, other cities will follow suit, attracting candidates that want to solve problems rather than kowtow to rich donors.
Let’s face it: Stabilizing housing costs is a reasonable practice, which is why most homeowners pay the same amount every month in mortgage payments. Mortgages don’t go up 17% every year to line the pockets of lenders. That would be ridiculous, and it is for renters too. Giving renters stability is not just a reasonable ask; it is a necessity.
As a lifelong renter, I believe we are on the precipice of policy change in the US. Renters and low-income communities are rising up to demand that the government acts in their interest.
Mamdani serving as mayor of America’s largest city, while living in a rent-stabilized apartment, is a game changer. More of this in other cities is desperately needed.
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