This article is part of the Under the Lens series
Updates Since Publication (Updated Feb. 11, 2026)
There have been several updates since our initial report in July 2025:
New York and California became the first states to ban the use of algorithmic pricing software to determine rental prices. RealPage is pushing back against New York’s ban.
The Department of Justice is settling its antitrust civil suit with RealPage, pending a judge’s approval. RealPage has agreed to stop using nonpublic, “competitively sensitive” data to set rental prices or train pricing software, and it is expected to redesign software that restricts rent decreases or align pricing among competitors, according to ProPublica. RealPage would also be subject to a court-appointed monitor.
Greystar and other real estate giants have settled class action lawsuits for using RealPage’s software, agreeing to pay millions. Greystar also agreed to no longer use RealPage products to set rents.
There’s been a significant legislative push this year to stop landlords from using certain types of algorithm-based software to help them determine how much they should charge for rent. In the last several months, legislators in at least 30 cities and states have proposed laws to end the use of anti-competitive rental software.
Legislators, several attorneys general, housing advocates, and others have argued that software that uses algorithms which rely on private and sensitive information from landlords—who would normally be in competition with one another—constitutes collusion and price-fixing. They argue that this type of software leads to boosts in profits for property owners, but artificially inflates housing costs for renters. In 2023 alone, according to a White House study, the use of this type of ‘rent-setting’ software cost renters almost $4 billion.
Most of the bills introduced this year to stop the use of anti-competitive rental software were at the state level, according to a Shelterforce analysis, though many of the successful ones were at the local level.
Eight cities have passed laws so far in 2025 that forbid landlords from coordinating with one another via algorithm-based software. Those cities are Berkeley and San Diego, California; Minneapolis; Providence, Rhode Island; Jersey City and Hoboken, New Jersey; Seattle; and most recently Santa Monica, California.
For an algorithm to determine whether someone sleeps in their home or on the street just to ensure maximum profit is unconscionable.”
Alexis Mercedes Rinck, Seattle council member
“For an algorithm to determine whether someone sleeps in their home or on the street just to ensure maximum profit is unconscionable,” Seattle council member Alexis Mercedes Rinck wrote in an emailed statement to Shelterforce. Rinck co-sponsored the city’s bill, which prohibits algorithmic price fixing. “Rent fixing is criminal, and in the age of AI and new technologies it’s essential our law keep up with the times.”
There hasn’t yet been a win on the state level. Colorado was close—a bill passed both the House and Senate this year, but the governor vetoed it in May.
Many of the proposed and passed laws include financial repercussions. The fine is often between $500 and $2,000 for each violation, but some were much more. Seattle’s recently approved bill, for instance, imposes a $7,500 fine each time a landlord uses an algorithm-based service to help them determine a rental price for a unit. And it’s not just fines—Hoboken’s bill includes a community service component as a consequence for violations.
Some of the legislation passed so far is bringing about change.
In September 2024, San Francisco was the first to ban the sale or use of “algorithmic devices” to set, recommend, or advise on rent prices. The law comes with penalties up to $1,000 per violation.
Shortly after, RealPage, a multibillion-dollar software company that offers tech-based property management tools to some of the largest landlords in the U.S., announced that it was eliminating the use of nonpublic competitor data for calculating rent recommendations in the city.
Interest in this kind of legislation has jumped sharply in 2025, says Hannah Holloway, the research manager of AI at TechEquity, which examines technology’s growing grasp on the housing and labor markets.
“This was one of the first years that we’ve had offices reaching out to us proactively to say we want to work on this [type of legislation],” Holloway says. TechEquity is sponsoring The End AI Rent Hikes Act in California.
There is also a federal version in the U.S. Senate—the Preventing Algorithmic Collusion Act of 2025, which follows two bills introduced in the Senate last year (the Preventing Algorithmic Collusion Act of 2024 and the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act of 2024), both of which stalled in committee.
The wave of legislative proposals follows a groundbreaking investigative report by ProPublica in 2022 that lifted the curtain on how RealPage’s proprietary algorithm for helping landlords set rental prices could be artificially inflating rents across the nation and stifling competition. “[The software] pushes you to go places that you wouldn’t have gone if you weren’t using it,” said Kortney Balas of JVM Realty in a testimonial video on the company’s website, according to the report.
ProPublica’s report was followed by a nearly two-year investigation of RealPage by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which filed an antitrust lawsuit against the company in 2024, alleging that RealPage’s “algorithmic pricing scheme” is hurting millions of renters in the U.S.
RealPage has publicly denied all claims of wrongdoing, saying its software is legally compliant. The company has blamed the high rental costs in the U.S. on the lack of affordable housing, and it is pushing back against recently passed legislation. In April, the company filed a suit against Berkeley before the ordinance was to take effect, calling the law unconstitutional. [Shelterforce reached out to RealPage for comment on this story, but we did not hear back from the company by press time.]
“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,” stated RealPage CEO and President Dana Jones in a release in April.
To avoid a costly legal battle, city officials voted in late June to pause their ban on rent setting software until March 2026.
Bumps in the Road
The budget reconciliation bill that President Donald Trump used to enact a sweeping domestic policy agenda almost included a provision that would have further thwarted these state and local legislative efforts. The bill, as passed by the House in May, included a 10-year moratorium on state laws that regulate AI use. During budget reconciliation, after pushback from the Senate Parliamentarian, fellow lawmakers, and state officials, Senate Republicans cut that moratorium down to 5 years, then removed it altogether.
[RELATED: Trump’s Big Ugly Bill Is a Loss for Housing]
It was a win for legislators who are working on bills to ban the use of anti-competitive rent-setting tech. “It’s state and local governments who have had demonstrated success in regulating big tech—not Congress,” Rinck told Shelterforce, commending Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) for working to strike out the provision.
But others in the housing world say Congress should be taking a closer look at this issue. The Real Estate Technology and Transformation Center (RETTC)—a recently formed membership organization composed of real estate and tech leaders—was a supporter of the now cut provision. [RETTC is an affiliate of the National Multifamily Housing Council, and has sponsorship from companies like RealPage, Airbnb, and SmartRent.]
We really did see the efforts around a federal moratorium as giving policymakers time to take a deep breath, pause, [and] continue its own education campaign on how best to regulate the technology. . . “
Kevin Donnelly, executive director of the Real Estate Technology and Transformation Center
“We really did see the efforts around a federal moratorium as giving policymakers time to take a deep breath, pause, continue its own education campaign on how best to regulate the technology, and then work to make sure you build upon the consumer protections that are out there and make sure that it’s not anything that’s going to stifle innovation,” says Kevin Donnelly, RETTC’s executive director.
Donnelly says more than 1,000 different state and local laws are being proposed across the U.S. to regulate the use of AI or other tech, and that is leading to a fragmented regulatory environment that “will have a chilling effect on the adoption of some of this technology.” He says some affordable or low-income housing providers can’t handle the legal or compliance risk of using innovative tech tools, so they will opt not to use it.
[RELATED STORY: How Affordable Housing Providers Are Embracing Tech to Manage Housing]
If the AI provision had been included in the finalized bill, which was signed by the president on Friday, July 4, there’s no doubt that lawmakers would have fought back. “If Trump and his ‘Big Busted Bill’ infringes on our local and states’ rights, we’ll fight back in court and everywhere else,” Jersey City council member James Solomon wrote in an email to Shelterforce on July 2. Solomon sponsored the city’s recently approved ordinance that amends the municipal code to prevent algorithmic rent-fixing. “The cost of living is outrageous enough as it is without corporate property managers, venture capitalists, and big developers using AI to price gouge our rents.”
But would a moratorium have preempted local legislation that’s been passed so far?
Not exactly, says Eric Dunn, director of litigation at the National Housing Law Project. “It’s not as though rent fixing is legal if you don’t pass any of these laws,” Dunn says. What’s really going to matter moving forward, he says, is the outcome of the pending lawsuits.
The Lawsuits Against RealPage
In August 2024, when President Biden was in office, the DOJ and eight states filed a civil suit against RealPage, alleging that the company “replaces competition with coordination” by allowing landlords to share sensitive information with one another to coordinate rental prices. The suit also alleges that RealPage monopolized the commercial revenue management software market. Both allegations violate the Sherman Act.
In December 2024, RealPage filed a motion to dismiss the suit, saying it lacked factual allegations. The filing also claimed the company did not have monopoly power, saying “RealPage’s revenue management software’s coverage of 4.8 million out of more than 16 million units yields a share of less than 30 percent, which is below the minimum for even attempted monopolization.”
RealPage also caused some confusion by releasing around the same time a statement saying the DOJ had closed a criminal investigation into the company. DOJ has not commented on that, but the civil suit continues.
In January, the DOJ amended its suit to include six of the nation’s largest landlords as defendants in the case.
“While Americans across the country struggled to afford housing, the landlords named in today’s lawsuit shared sensitive information about rental prices and used algorithms to coordinate to keep the price of rent high,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Doha Mekki stated at the time. “Today’s action against RealPage and six major landlords seeks to end their practice of putting profits over people and make housing more affordable for millions of people across the country.”
In August, Greystar—the largest landlord in the country—settled with the DOJ and agreed to stop using the software.
There are multiple other lawsuits working their way through the courts:
- Kentucky’s attorney general filed a suit against RealPage and nine landlords on July 2, alleging that they unlawfully increased rent costs for residents.
- New Jersey’s attorney general filed a suit in April against RealPage and 10 of the state’s largest landlords, alleging that they violated the state’s antitrust act, the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, and the Sherman Act.
- Maryland filed a suit against RealPage and six landlords in January, alleging that they violated the state’s antitrust act.
- The District of Columbia had filed an earlier suit in 2023, alleging that RealPage and 14 landlords in the city acted unlawfully and violated antitrust laws. In January, the suit was amended to include additional landlords as plaintiffs. In June, one landlord agreed to pay $1 million to resolve allegations, according to the attorney general’s office.
RealPage has denied all the claims, and testified during a hearing that landlords don’t always accept its algorithm’s recommendations. The company said it only happens about 35 percent of the time.
According to reporting by ProPublica in 2022, former RealPage employees said that number was more like 90 percent.
Legislation Moving Forward
At the rate new legislation has been introduced so far this year, it’s likely we’ll see many more policymakers introduce laws to stop landlords from using algorithmic-based software that compiles information from private or public sources to recommend rent prices.
And it’s also likely we’ll see pushback from RealPage and other companies, landlords who use the software, and others.
Donnelly of RETTC says the group will work with members of Congress and leadership to look at the broader regulatory landscape of AI. “There’s been a lot of debate focused on the role of pricing software in the marketplace and much of it has really misunderstood how the tech is actually being used,” Donnelly says. “We should be looking to technology as a solution and not a problem.”
Dunn of the National Housing Law Project doesn’t believe tech is inherently bad. But, he says, “when landlords are allowed to use tech to maximize profit and nothing else is relevant, then it can become very disruptive.”
Editor’s note: This article was updated to include Hoboken and Santa Monica’s recently approved laws, and information about Greystar’s settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice.
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